Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1898-06-20
The "ManCha" or "CandelillO" Coffee
Disease Of Central America and Mex
leo, and the Danger Of Introducing
Il Into Hawaii.
BY WALTER T. SwINGLE, Special Agent.

About fifteen years ago Dr. M. I.
Cooks (I) described two small para
site fungi, Stlbnm faUidnm and
Sbhaerella cofeicola growing on coffee
leaves sent him from Venezuela.
He considered them to be the cause
of a disease of the leaves known as
mancha, black rot or candelillo in
Venezuela. In 1892 Prof. Nicolas
Saenz of the National University of
Columbia published a pamphlet on
coffee culture, (2) and described at
some length this disease, which he
says occasions considerable injury to
the plantations. He refers to it
again as a disastrous malady
which has caused and is now cauS-
ing great losses to the growers.
He describes the affected plant as
presenting a number of round or
oval spots, dingy yellowish in color
on the branches, fruits and espe-
cially on the leaves. He counted as
many as seventy spots on single
leaf. If the plants are on good soil
they show little signs of injury at
first they may pass through winter
and the dry hot season little changed,
but when the first rains come even
the most vigorous plants suffer ex-
ceedingly, losing most of the leaves
and fruits, so that the harvest is
greatly decreased. If the plants
are weak they die after one, or, at
most, two attacks of the disease.
Even strong trees require at least
three years to recover from an
attack of the mancha. Not all the
diseased leaves fall, some times in
mild cases only the spots fall away,
leaving holes in the leaf. The spots
on the berries are always on the
upper side, and when the berries do
not fall they frequently show dead
portion of the pericarp, which is
simply network of dead fibrous
tissue. "Some times the diseased
part extends as far as the seeds,
which then are retarded in their de-
velopment, as is shown by their
wrinkled surfaces"
Prof. Saenz further states that
"the development of the disease is
favored by long rainy seasons ac-
companied by relatively low tenn
perature." The disease almost al
ways begins in the upper or colder
part of the plantation. Again he
says, "In order to start a coffee
plantation where there is least risk
of its suffering the ravages of the
mancha, a locality should be selected
whose temperature is 23 degrees c
or above; because it is observed
that at lower temperatures the fun
gus develops very rapidly"
In 1903 Sr. Adolfo Tonduz (3) of
the Costa Rican National Physico-
Geographical Institute made a pre-
liminary report on this disease. He
found it to cause the dropping of
great numbers of the berries on
some trees in Costa Rica. Dried
leaves showing the disease were
sent out with his report.
In 1897 J. w. Forsyth "a & 5)
wrote a short account of this mall
ady as it exists in Northwestern
Guatemala (Tumbador district and
Southwestern Mexico (Soconusco in
Chiapas.) He says: "When | first
went to Guatemala, March 1883,
the coffee showed a magnificence
and luxuriance of growth and re-
dundancy of foliage that had
hitherto been stranger to. From
8 to IL pounds of coffee was not
infrequently picked off single trees.
But in the early nineties | noticed
great change, particularly in So
conusco and the district in Guate-
mala called Tumbador, which i'm
mediately adjoinS Soconusco. The
coffee trees seemed TO have lost their