Do bees influence the quality of your morning coffee?
Conference Year
January 2022
Abstract
Bees provide valuable pollination services in agriculture. Still, it is unknown how cross-pollination by bees influences crop quality traits, which determine nutrition value and prices. This study tests how bees influence the coffee quality or trade-offs between yield over quality. We conducted bee-exclusion and hand-pollination experiments on a Costa Rican coffee farm controlling for factors usually associated with quality. After harvest, we evaluated coffee yield and quality attributes (i.e., aroma, taste) under standardized roasting and certified tasting protocols. Preliminary results show cross-pollination does not affect yield as previously reported – indicating potential trade-offs in resource allocation during berry production.
Primary Faculty Mentor Name
Taylor Ricketts
Status
Graduate
Student College
Rubenstein School of Environmental and Natural Resources
Program/Major
Ecological Agriculture
Second Program/Major
Environmental Sciences
Primary Research Category
Food & Environment Studies
Secondary Research Category
Biological Sciences
Do bees influence the quality of your morning coffee?
Bees provide valuable pollination services in agriculture. Still, it is unknown how cross-pollination by bees influences crop quality traits, which determine nutrition value and prices. This study tests how bees influence the coffee quality or trade-offs between yield over quality. We conducted bee-exclusion and hand-pollination experiments on a Costa Rican coffee farm controlling for factors usually associated with quality. After harvest, we evaluated coffee yield and quality attributes (i.e., aroma, taste) under standardized roasting and certified tasting protocols. Preliminary results show cross-pollination does not affect yield as previously reported – indicating potential trade-offs in resource allocation during berry production.