An experiment was carried out in January of 1994 in the greenhouse at the Crop Science Department of the Universidade Federal de Viçosa, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the effecets of aluminum on P, Ca and Al concentrations in the plants and on the P and Ca efficiencies of utilization by nine coffee genotypes. Plants were grown with 0 and 0.296 mmol L-1 of aluminum in nutrient solution, in pH 4.0, for 115 days. After this period, plants were separated in higher leaves, lower leaves, first pair of completely expanded leaves, stem and roots to evaluate dry matter yield and phosphorus, calcium and aluminum concentrations in plant parts. Aluminum tolerance was associated with lower root phosphorus accumulation, lower reduction of phosphorus translocation to shoot, lower reduction of calcium uptake and higher phosphorus and calcium use efficiency. A large accumulation of aluminum in the roots was observed, reducing the Al transport to shoot, for all coffee genotypes.
Coffea arabica L; toxicity; absorption; nutrition efficiency