Coffee production years after planting for a coffee plant to produce coffee beans that are ripe enough to harvest. The plant eventually grows small white blossoms that drop and are replaced by green berries. These green berries will become a deep red color as they ripen. It takes about 9 months for the green cherries to reach their deepest red color. Because this kind of harvest is labor-intensive, and thus more costly, it is used primarily to harvest the finer arabica beans. The laborers who pick coffee by hand receive payment by the basketful. , payment per basket is between US$2.00 to
Coffee scale are often cut and left on the ground, which promotes scale parasites to not only attack the scale on the fallen branches but in the plant as well. The 2-mm-long coffee borer beetle ("Hypothenemus hampei") is the most damaging insect pest to the world's coffee industry, destroying up to 50 percent or more of the coffee berries on plantations in most coffee-producing countries. The adult female beetle nibbles a single tiny hole in a coffee berry and lays 35 to 50 eggs. Inside, the offspring grow, mate, and then emerge from the commercially ruined berry to disperse, repeating the