A recent study about pollination in coffee plantations done by Carlos H. Vergara and Ernesto I. Badano. I understood the importance of this subject for the future training and research for coffee producers. During the study which was done in the state of Veracruz, the second most important producer of coffee in Mexico, and where most of the cultivation takes place in the central region of the state.
Management for pollination is not common among coffee producers in Mexico and very often this aspect is not even considered as a management practice. However, beekeepers usually move many hives of A. Mallifera or Western Honey Bee into coffee plantations to take advantage of the intense nectar flow associated with coffee blooming. The purpose of this study focused on the effects of insect pollinator diversity on coffee fruit production in two types of environmental management systems one being the low environmental impact management systems or in other words the native forest is not completely removed and the second one the high environmental impact management systems, the native forest is completely removed.
At a global scale, about one third of the human food is obtained from plant species that depend on pollinators to produce fruits and seeds, and these pollination services have been valued at 112 billion US Dollars. This services being so lucrative and important for human food play also a tremendous roll as to our total consumable production of food. In this study we will focus on pollination with out the use of this services and focus only in natural pollinators.
Moguel and Toledo (1999) identified five management systems in Mexico coffee plantations:
1. Rustic shaded coffee, where plantations are located beneath the canopy of native tropical or temperate forest after removing vegetation of the lower strata.
2.Traditional shaded coffee, where vegetation of the lower strata is removed and coffee is grown beneath the native forest canopy together with several other plant species for local subsistence such as bananas, oranges and others.
3 Commercial polyculture, where the native forest is completely removed and replaced with a set of nonnative trees with high economic value such as pepper and cedar, which provide shaded for coffee.
4. Specialized shaded coffee, where native forest is removed and replaced by tree species only belonging to the family Fabaceae such as legumes for shade and soil nitrification.
5. Sun Coffee, where forest is removed and coffee plants are directly exposed to sun without vegetation cover.
By identifying this 5 different management systems we can clearly see that all of them are used in all the coffee producing country's and that is way I believe this study is of such importance to all of us who want to see high production of healthy and high quality coffee as well as the well being of the growers land and his economy.
So here is the results of the study. Are you ready?
Fruit set was higher for open pollinated flowers in the less intensively managed systems (rustic shaded and commercial polyculture) but not for the intensively managed systems. This difference could be related with the low number of pollinator species found in these management systems and not to low abundance of pollinators, because the total number of pollinator recorded in the specialized shade coffee sites was, in fact, higher than in any of the other management systems.
The results suggest that diversity of insect pollinators can be influenced by the management of system applied by farmers, and that such effects may have strong consequences on coffee fruit production. Hence, management measures that favor pollinator diversity could result in increased farm productivity and will enhance biodiversity conservation in coffee growing regions.
So in conclusion it benefits us all to understand how much managed systems can help or harm coffee production and the importance of having an open communication between ecologist and farmers to find the right system that will propagate large harvest and high quality.
Management for pollination is not common among coffee producers in Mexico and very often this aspect is not even considered as a management practice. However, beekeepers usually move many hives of A. Mallifera or Western Honey Bee into coffee plantations to take advantage of the intense nectar flow associated with coffee blooming. The purpose of this study focused on the effects of insect pollinator diversity on coffee fruit production in two types of environmental management systems one being the low environmental impact management systems or in other words the native forest is not completely removed and the second one the high environmental impact management systems, the native forest is completely removed.
At a global scale, about one third of the human food is obtained from plant species that depend on pollinators to produce fruits and seeds, and these pollination services have been valued at 112 billion US Dollars. This services being so lucrative and important for human food play also a tremendous roll as to our total consumable production of food. In this study we will focus on pollination with out the use of this services and focus only in natural pollinators.
Moguel and Toledo (1999) identified five management systems in Mexico coffee plantations:
1. Rustic shaded coffee, where plantations are located beneath the canopy of native tropical or temperate forest after removing vegetation of the lower strata.
2.Traditional shaded coffee, where vegetation of the lower strata is removed and coffee is grown beneath the native forest canopy together with several other plant species for local subsistence such as bananas, oranges and others.
3 Commercial polyculture, where the native forest is completely removed and replaced with a set of nonnative trees with high economic value such as pepper and cedar, which provide shaded for coffee.
4. Specialized shaded coffee, where native forest is removed and replaced by tree species only belonging to the family Fabaceae such as legumes for shade and soil nitrification.
5. Sun Coffee, where forest is removed and coffee plants are directly exposed to sun without vegetation cover.
By identifying this 5 different management systems we can clearly see that all of them are used in all the coffee producing country's and that is way I believe this study is of such importance to all of us who want to see high production of healthy and high quality coffee as well as the well being of the growers land and his economy.
So here is the results of the study. Are you ready?
Fruit set was higher for open pollinated flowers in the less intensively managed systems (rustic shaded and commercial polyculture) but not for the intensively managed systems. This difference could be related with the low number of pollinator species found in these management systems and not to low abundance of pollinators, because the total number of pollinator recorded in the specialized shade coffee sites was, in fact, higher than in any of the other management systems.
The results suggest that diversity of insect pollinators can be influenced by the management of system applied by farmers, and that such effects may have strong consequences on coffee fruit production. Hence, management measures that favor pollinator diversity could result in increased farm productivity and will enhance biodiversity conservation in coffee growing regions.
So in conclusion it benefits us all to understand how much managed systems can help or harm coffee production and the importance of having an open communication between ecologist and farmers to find the right system that will propagate large harvest and high quality.
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E
Here is a little test choose each picture with the correct management system
Which picture is an example of
Rustic Shade Coffee? ________
Traditional Shade Coffee?_______
Commercial Polyculture?_______
Specialized Shaded Coffee?_________
Sun Coffee?_________
I will post the correct answer on Monday.
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