Tipologías cafetaleras en el pacífico de Nicaragua

Abstract

Se estudiaron factores biofísicos y socioeconómicos que pudieron haber influido y en gran medida determinado el diseño y manejo del dosel de sombra en 36 fincas cafetaleras ubicadas en la región del Pacífico de Nicaragua. Se realizó una caracterización de las fincas y un análisis de tipologías. La metodología se basó en una clasificación a priori de los tipos de cafetales predominantes en la zona de estudio. Los tipos de cafetales fueron definidos a partir de la función que ejercen los distintos componentes de sombra.

A diversification of species, of vertical strata and horizontal distribution, of products and forms of component management can be found in the coffee fields of Nicaragua. Great variation in the botanical composition and arboreal component structure can be observed not only between coffee fields of different regions, but within them as well, which is reflected in the diversity of the arboreal species. The biophysical and socioeconomic factors that could have influenced, and to a large extent, determined the design and management of the shade canopy were studied in 36 coffee farm properties located in the Pacific region of Nicaragua. The farms were characterized and an analysis was made of the typologies. The methodology was based on a classification a priori of the prevailing types of coffee fields in the study zone. The types of coffee fields were defined according to the function carried out by different shade components. The types of coffee fields are: with strictly shade trees, with shade - timber trees, shade - banana, shade - citric and mixed shade. The information gathered in the field was of a socioeconomic and biophysical nature, obtained through interviews and temporary sample plots 1000 m{ostrok} in which species richness and relative abundance was measured to determine the diversity in the shade canopy. Descriptive statistics of all the biophysical and socioeconomic variables were calculated. The differences between the types of coffee fields formed a priori were studied by means of variance analysis and tables of contingency. The coffee farm typologies were analyzed through multivariate techniques including principal componntes analysis, cluster analysis and discriminate analysis. Three procedures were used: analysis of the coffee field types formed a priori analysis of the classification a posteriori using all the variables and analysis of the classification a posteriori using selected variables. In the first procedure, the classification a priori was submitted to discriminate analysis and canonical discriminate analysis to determine if some of the biophysical and socioeconomic variables were responsible for the classification. For the second and third procedure, the property classifications were based on Gower distances between the quantitative variables. The second classifying procedure consisted of a cluster analysis with 26 variables grouped into four clusters.