Tolerance of Arabica Coffee Cultivars for Aluminum in Nutritive Solution

This work aimed to evaluate the Coffea arabica cultivars for aluminum toxicity tolerance, in modified Hoagland solution. A completely randomized design with five repetitions in a factorial 4 x 4 (cultivar x combinations of aluminum) was used. After 44 days of the sowing, were transferred ten seedlings each cultivar germinated in the absence of Al3+ to solution without Al3+, and ten for solution with Al3+; ten seedlings each cultivar germinated in presence of Al3+ to solution without Al3+, and ten for solution with Al3+. In the treatment with aluminum, the element was added to the nutritive solution in the concentration of 0.83 mmol L-1 as Al-2(SO4)(3)center dot 16H(2)O. The cultivars Catuai Amarelo IAC 62 and Iapar 59 were tolerant to the aluminum; cultivar Oeiras presented intermediate tolerance, while cultivar Obata IAC 1669-20 was sensitive. The tolerance of the coffee cultivars to the aluminum during the initial development of the seedlings did not depend on the presence of aluminum in the germination phase.