Scientists Sequence Arabica Genome, Opening Doors to Climate-Resilient Coffee

The work makes it possible to tell the story of the fusion of genomes that gave rise to the world’s most consumed species, as well as identifying genes responsible for resistance to rust and other diseases.

Coffee is one of the world’s most traded commodities, and Coffea arabica is the most widely consumed of the 130 or so species that exist. It is the result of the fusion of two other species: Coffea canephora (known in Brazil as Conilon or Robusta coffee) and Coffea eugenioides. In the last decade, almost every major commodity in the world has had a reference genome sequenced, but coffee has only recently joined the list.