Seeds and Nursery: Where Every Cup Begins

It All Starts with a Seed

Most people think coffee begins at the roaster or the barista. In reality, the journey to a great cup starts months before a seedling ever touches the ground -- it starts with choosing the right seed.

At our farms in Caicedonia, Valle del Cauca, we grow multiple varieties including Castillo, Caturra, Bourbon, and Geisha. Each variety carries different genetic potential for flavor, yield, and disease resistance. Selecting the right seed for the right plot is one of the most consequential decisions a coffee farmer makes.

Seed Selection Criteria

Not every cherry on a coffee tree produces a viable seed for planting. We select seeds based on:

• Variety purity -- seeds must come from verified mother plants to avoid genetic mixing
• Cherry ripeness -- only fully ripe, deep-red cherries are selected
• Physical health -- no broca damage, no deformities, no signs of disease
• Source tree performance -- mother plants should have a track record of high cupping scores and strong yields

Seeds are depulped carefully, fermented for 12-18 hours to remove mucilage, washed clean, and then dried in shade to preserve viability. This mirrors the same wet processing we use for exportable coffee -- precision matters from the very first step.

The Nursery Stage

Once dried, seeds go into a germination bed called a germinador. Within 45-60 days, the seed develops a small root (radicle) and pushes up through the soil in what we call the chapola stage -- a tiny stem with two embryonic leaves still attached to the seed husk.

From the germinador, seedlings are transplanted into individual bags in the almacigo (nursery). Here they will spend 6 to 8 months developing:

• A strong taproot system
• 4-6 pairs of true leaves
• A woody, pencil-thick stem
• Resistance to transplant shock

Nursery Management Essentials

The nursery environment must be carefully controlled:

• Shade -- 50-60% shade using mesh or banana leaves to prevent sunburn
• Irrigation -- consistent moisture without waterlogging
• Nutrition -- light fertilization with balanced NPK once true leaves emerge
• Pest monitoring -- early detection of nematodes, damping-off fungus, and leaf miners
• Hardening off -- gradually reducing shade in the final weeks to prepare seedlings for full sun

A well-managed nursery produces seedlings with survival rates above 95% after transplant. A poorly managed one can lose half the crop before it ever reaches the field.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

Across our 221 hectares and 6 farms, a bad nursery batch means thousands of weak plants that underperform for years. Coffee is a perennial crop -- you live with your planting decisions for 15 to 20 years. There are no shortcuts at this stage.

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This post is adapted from Module 2 of our Seed to Cup course. Want to learn how we manage our nursery program across 6 farms? Join the free Particular Coffee community at [skool.com/particular-3064](https://skool.com/particular-3064) for weekly lessons and live Q&A sessions.