Caturra

Caturra is a natural dwarf mutation of Bourbon discovered on a plantation in Minas Gerais, Brazil, sometime in the late 1910s. Its short internodes and compact habit allow much denser planting than Bourbon or Typica, and Brazil's Instituto Agronomico began a formal breeding and selection programme with the variety from 1937. From the 1940s Caturra spread widely into Central America and Colombia, where it became a cornerstone of national renovation programmes because of its high yield and good cup quality, comparable to Bourbon. It has no natural resistance to leaf rust, so it later became a key parent, crossed with Mundo Novo to create Catuai and used in various Colombian breeding lines, in the search for higher yielding, disease resistant coffee.