Overview

Traditions? Mr. Grau was born in Pozo Negro, a small town in the Department of La Paz. He is a small coffee farmer and started taking care of the farm when 12 years ago when his dad passed it to him. Wilmer is a dedicated producer and has always stood out as an excellent coffee farmer. He inherits this land from his father, Jose Javier Grau Gomez, who began growing coffee in 1980. He started with less than half an hectare. In 1997 his father dies in an accident and he inherits almost 3 hectares of coffee farm, and he already owned 1 1/2 hectares to make a total of 4 1/2 hectares. He invests in his land improving his farm and growing to have 6 hectares. Wilmer has participated in previous years in the COE program, winning seventh place in the year 2005. Family generations? His father was born in Los Horcones, Masaguara were he commuted to the Community of Pozo Negro were he began growing corn, but he planted his first coffee plants and soon discovered this was a more rentable crop. In 1985 the whole family moves to Pozo Negros and when his father dies his mother inherits the farm to him and his sister Ana Lourdes. He pretends to inherit this farm to his own children. What technologies do you use? Traditional management is used since he fertilizes his coffee field without soil analysis, he does not perform foliate fertilizations. He does not apply fungicide, he only does weed controls, selective prunings in the coffee field and plant nurseries of coffee to replant. Describe the production process that you use for your coffee? He performs weed control before each of 2 fertilizations that take place in June and in September. In December he prepares himself with enough sacks and makes improvements in the mill installations, since the harvest begins in January and he only uses cutters of the same community, whom he trains personally to assure the best harvest of his coffee. He then processes his coffee, making sure the pulper is in good conditions and that the water quality is good to obtain a parchment coffee of excellence. It is then dried immediately in cement patios and stored in an adequate warehouse in his property. How do you control pests? He does not perform pest control since there is no incident in the zone of Coffee borer beetle who harms the coffee the most. He does perform cultural practices such as : re-peeling or adequate harvesting of all the coffee cherries, slash and burn to replanting, selective pruning of coffee, weed control and shade regulation to prevent the fungous diseases. What type of shade do you use?guamas, musaseas, liquidambar, avocado tree, tatascan, pine trees, guava trees, prune trees, guachipilin. How do you pulp your coffee and in what state is pulper? Using a pulper with 3 jets, enteerna brand, which is in excellent conditions, moved by an engine of 5 horsepower.