In September 2019 we were made aware that five of the cultivars listed as accepted cultivars in the competition category «Leaf rust resistant hybrid cultivars» are in fact not resistant.
The cultivars that are no longer considered resistant are Costa Rica 95, Ihcafe 90, Lempira, (Susceptible) Batian and Ruiru 11 (Tolerant) .
The Nordic Roaster committee based the list of resistant cultivars on the information published on the World Coffee Research website and the SCA website when the competition rules were made in December 2018. Information on these cultivars have later been changed regarding their resistance to leaf rust. Because the rules were published for the competition in February 2019 and the roasters have based their sourcing on that information, the Nordic Roaster Committee decided it was too late to change the rules only one month prior to the competition as this would not leave enough time for the roasters to source new coffee if they were competing with one of the 5 cultivars mentioned above. The committee will therefore allow for these 5 cultivars to be entered in the competition.
Moe importantly, if one of these cultivars was used by a winner of the category it is important to note that we do not recommend farmers planting these varieties unless they are aware that they are susceptible or tolerant and not resistant to leaf rust.