Coffee
became popular in Europe during the early 1600's, contaminated water limited
drinks to fermented beverages or those made with boiled water (coffee or tea).
Coffee houses (left) were extremely popular social gatherings in England in
1650. The Dutch were the first major coffee importers, using Ceylon (now Sri
Lanka) as a production site. During the time of Napoleon, the British was able
to rid Europe of Napoleon's armies and take the island of Ceylon. In 1825, they
began development of Ceylon as a coffee producing area. By 1870, Ceylon was
the world's greatest cofffee producer, exporting 100 million pounds of coffee.
By the time the railway was complete to Kandy in 1875, the bearing trees were
dying a quickly as the young ones were planted. The cause of the dying trees
was Hemeleia vastatrix, coffee rust. When coffee rust reached Ceylon
there were about 400,000 acres of trees. By 1886, the British were only exporting
18 million pounds from Ceylon and by 1889 they were only exporting 5 million
pounds. There were no fungicides available
to control the problem. 
The British government sent H. M. Ward, a student of Anton de Bary, to Ceylon to solve the problem. Although he wasn't able to save the plantations, he did present two important concepts to the new science of plant pathology. He exhaustively studied the life cycle of the fungus, noting that germinating spores may represent the most vulnerable stage at which to attack the fungus. In other words a protectant should be applied to the coffee leaves prior to spore arrival, because once the spores have infected the plant, the hyphae inside the tissue is not vulnerable to fungicide. He also noted the dangers in monoculture farming. A perfect growing environment was created with the continual planting of coffee trees over island. He warned of these dangers but was ignored when the dying coffee trees were replaced with tea bushes. Fortunately the fungus did not invade the tea crop. Within five years, 300,000 acres of tea bushes had replaced the dying coffee trees. This has been the one recorded time in history that a country has had to change its principal crop in such a short time. Not only were the British coffee plantation owners affected, the Dutch had to replant their East India possessions as well. They chose rubber instead of tea. In one decade the coffee industry on one continent was destroyed. The coffee industry moved to the Western Hemisphere, and today Brazil and Columbia lead the world coffee production. Careful quarantines were used to exclude coffee rust, but this was only successful for about 100 years. In 1970, coffee rust was reported in Brazil. The fungus slowy spread throughout the coffee producing areas, it moved into Columbia and into Central America. So what is being done? Frequent applications of fungicides are used on the highly susceptible cultivars, which happen to be the best quality coffee. New farming practices had to be implemented, trees have to grown at lower densities to allow for better coverage of fungicide. Wider spacing of trees increases air movement which allows the foliage to dry more quickly. This reduces infections, because the spores required water for germination. Greater use of chemicals and new farming practices increase the production cost which results in a cup of coffee costing more to the consumer. Resistant cultivars are being used but they produce lower quality coffee.
