Guarana & Brasil

The topic that will be discussed today it is about harvesting and storage of guarana. To know that the fruits are ready to be harvested, just observe the fruits. When the fruits are ripe they partially open, leaving one to three dark brown seeds with the lower half covered by a thick white aryl. Harvesting is carried out at this stage when 2/3 of the bunches show the fruits open, so that the bark does not open fully, avoiding the fall of the seeds ( this happens if the fruits are harvested too late) http://www.sebrae.com.br/sites/PortalSebrae/artigos/o-cultivo-e-o-mercado-do-guarana,969a9e665b182410VgnVCM100000b272010aRCRD The harvest of the guarana is done by human labor even in large scale of production. http://www.sebrae.com.br/sites/PortalSebrae/artigos/o-cultivo-e-o-mercado-do-guarana,969a9e665b182410VgnVCM100000b272010aRCRD The guarana fruit should be pulped and roasted for commercialization. After harvest, the fruits are packed in bags or stacked in a clean pla...

The topic today it is about Crop rotation, tillage and crop establishment. As guarana is a perennial plant, crop rotation is not a suitable option. Most of the guarana plantations are monocultures  but polyculture and intercropping are good options for this plant, adding sweet potato between the lines of guarana plants showed good results, the farmer can get faster profit from the sweet potatoes, the sweet potatoes also protects the soil against erosion and they are also drought resistant. https://www.embrapa.br/amazonia-ocidental/busca-de-publicacoes/-/publicacao/665230/cultivo-de-batata-doce-nas-entrelinhas-do-guarana Not a lot of researches and different experiments were done about the subject of polyculture and intercropping for guarana. But the one that was done with the sweet potato showed good results, so it means that the guarana plant can work in cooperation with other plants and more investigation about this topic need to be done, once the soil and the farmers...

Today the topic will be about diseases and insects that can have interference in the guarana production.     The main disease for the guarana plants is the  anthracnose ,   caused by the fungus  Colletotrichum   guaranicola , it is one of the main problems for the low production of guarana in the Amazon.   https://www.acritica.com/channels/governo/news/embrapa-lanca-novas-plantas-de-guarana-resistentes-a-doencas-e-de-alta-produtividade-comercial   A nthracnose   The main insect that  attacks  the guarana plants is the  Liothrips   adisi .   This species has only been founded in  guaraná  plants.    https://www.embrapa.br/busca-de-publicacoes/-/publicacao/665200/observacoes-sobre-o-tripes-liothrips-adisi-strassen-1977-do-guaranazeiro   Liothrips   adisi The  insects, in order  to feed,  suck the plant sap, which causes morphophysiological changes in the ...

Today the topic that we will discuss is weeds! Weeds are valueless plant growing wild, it grows together with the desired cultivate plant and in the worst cases, if do not take the right precautions it can become a competitor of the plant that you want to cultivate http://www.dictionary.com/browse/weed For our case that is Guarana, a scientific study done in the amazon state collected    14.707 samples of weeds,  among them were detected 40 families and  87 species.  70 of the species were Dicotyledons representing 80,5% of the weeds,    13 Monocotyledons (15%) and 4 Pteridophytes (4,5%). Panicum pilosum, Scleria melaleuca, Panicum laxum, Spermacoce capitata, Selaginella asperula  and  Homolepis aturensis  are the main weeds  found during the study. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0100-83582004000300004 Panicum pilosum     Panicum  laxum A crop infestation by weeds can ...

Today the topic we will discuss is soil! Such as an important factor for plants. people and for the world.                                             The soil of Amazon rainforest is the deepest in the world,  it have been formed from the underlying rock and rain. Some places of the Amazon River Basin, the soil is white and sandy. How is a rainforest, the rain has a lot of impact there, the soils are often washed out, so large amounts of nutrients and minerals are being removed from the subsoil, due to it, most of the soils are lacking many of the fundamental nutrients needed by the above ground vegetation. Composed by a thin topsoil, made up mainly of decaying vegetable and animals, what provide a high amount of organic matter. http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/amazon/about_the_amazon/ecosystems_amazon/rainforests/ http://www.soil-net.com/dev/pag...

Today I will discuss about  different and interesting topics. Let's start with Brasil and guaraná, this plant  has Brazilian origin mainly because the conditions and the climate found in that country. The Amazon is located in the equatorial region and has a hot and humid climate. http://climanalise.cptec.inpe.br/~rclimanl/boletim/cliesp10a/fish.html The graphic bellow shows better how is the weather and how the rainfall is distributed over the year at the rain forest.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/ecosystems/tropical_rainforests_rev1.shtml It is possible to observe that the temperatures do not have a lot of oscillations during the year, but the rainy months are mainly from December till May. For guaraná production the plant needs low altitude, warm and humid climate with 85% relative humidity, 26ºC average annual temperature and annual rainfall between 1,500 and 2000 mm.  http://www.ceplac.gov.br/radar/guarana.htm W...

Today the topic is about improving plants, for understand it better we need to understand how happens the reproduction. Guaraná is monoecious, it means that the plant have separate male and the female flower on the same plant. So a cross pollination happens in those plants, by insects and wind. (tropical.theferns, n.d.) (Cristiane Krug, 2016) Those plants have strategies to prevent self-pollination, the pistil and stamen maturing at different times, so it can't reproduce by itself.  (Britannica, n.d.) To be a self-pollinated specie the plant need to have the male and the female part in the same flower in the same plant, then t he flower can reproduce by itself without any intervention, it can even occur when the flower still closed, in cross pollination the flower is lacking the male or the female part and need intervention from outside factors, it only occurs when the flower is open, normally the flowers are attractive with colourful colours...

Now is time to discuss something really important for plants, photosynthesis! Photosynthesis is the source of energy for plants, and it can be divided in two types: C3 and C4 The guaraná is a kind of plant that is located in warm and tropical weather. A studied was done with guaraná to show with group it fits in and the answer is :C4 Because guaraná  presentes greater stom atal resistance, especially in the dry period. So  under water stress conditions, it results in a better adaptation to dough. In these conditions happens a partial stomatal closure, what restraining the  water  vapour  loss  and  minimising  the  energy loss  by  transpiration,  may  also  restrain  the  CO2 entrance,  resulting  water  economy  and  reduction of defoliation. Transpiration and stomatal resistance variations of perennial tropical crops under soil water availability conditions a...