The town of Lipa (now Lipa City) became the biggest producer of arabica in the 1880s, but collapsed when the coffee rust disease arrived in the 1890s, killing almost all coffee arabica plants, which threatened the variety with extinction.
In 2001, rootstock from the Coffea liberica species was found to be resistant to the nematodes.
Coffea | Coffea arabica | Coffea liberica | coffea |