Coffee and Cacao Diseases

The fungal diseases of coffee, cacao and the related tropical beverage crop tea, gathered together because these crops share tropical growing regions, smallholder production systems and, in several cases, the same pathogen moving between cultivated stands. Coffee leaf rust and coffee wilt disease anchor this group, each having reshaped the world coffee trade at a different point in history, alongside the cacao pod and vascular diseases responsible for major losses in West African and South American cacao production and the leaf and blister diseases documented on tea. Distinct from the diseases of temperate fruit, cereal and field vegetable crops gathered in their own groups here.