Gizaw W, Mengesha M, Nigatu L
The study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between rainfall and temperature characteristics and coffee productivity. Daily rainfall, temperature, and coffee yield data of Sixteen years were used for analysis. Correlation, regression, rainfall and temperature parameters characterization was carried out by Instat V3.37 software. Moreover, resemble of GFDL-ESM2M, BCC-CSM1-1, NorESM1-M and CSIRO-Mk3-6-0 model under RCP 4.5 emission scenarios of IPCCAR5 were used for rainfall and temperature projection. Seasonal and annual rainfall totals were highly variable. Pearson correlation revealed belg rainy day had a positive strong correlation with coffee yield whereas end date, kiremt rainy day, kiremt rainfall total, belg rainfall total and length of the growing period had positive moderate correlations. However, the onset date had a negative moderate correlation. Moreover, belg and kiremt mean temperature showed a negative strong correlation. The influence of rainfall and temperature variability on coffee productivity was statistically significant (P=0.03). In the future, due to the expected impacts of rising belg and kiremt mean temperature, late-onset and shortening of the length of growing period and weakening of kiremt rainfall amount in general, the productivity of Coffea arabica is expected to decrease in the study area. Therefore, there is a need for more research on suitable coffee shade, drought and high-temperature resistant varieties, water conservation strategies and moving coffee establishments at higher elevations.