Flower-Visiting Insects Ensure Coffee Yield and Quality

Jesús Hernando Gómez, Pablo Benavides, Juan Diego Maldonado, Juliana Jaramillo, Flor Edith Acevedo and Zulma Nancy Gil ()
Additional contact information
Jesús Hernando Gómez: Entomology Department, Centro Nacional de Investigaciones de Café—Cenicafé, Planalto Headquarters, km. 4 vía Antigua a Manizales, Manizales 170009, Caldas, Colombia
Pablo Benavides: Entomology Department, Centro Nacional de Investigaciones de Café—Cenicafé, Planalto Headquarters, km. 4 vía Antigua a Manizales, Manizales 170009, Caldas, Colombia
Juan Diego Maldonado: Entomology Department, Centro Nacional de Investigaciones de Café—Cenicafé, Planalto Headquarters, km. 4 vía Antigua a Manizales, Manizales 170009, Caldas, Colombia
Juliana Jaramillo: Theme Lead Regenerative Agriculture, Rainforest Alliance, De Ruyterkade 6 BG, 1013 Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Flor Edith Acevedo: Department of Entomology, Pennsylvania State University, Penn State Behrend Campus, 651 Cemetery Rd, North East, PA 16428, USA
Zulma Nancy Gil: Entomology Department, Centro Nacional de Investigaciones de Café—Cenicafé, Planalto Headquarters, km. 4 vía Antigua a Manizales, Manizales 170009, Caldas, Colombia

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: (1) Background: The participation of insects in the pollination of self-pollinating plants, such as coffee, is still controversial. This study determined the effect of flower-visiting insects on coffee berry set, yield, and quality. (2) Methods: Over 2 years, five evaluations in different locations, dates, and harvest times were carried out. Each evaluation consisted of eight treatments with 50 replicates each, arranged in a completely randomized experimental design. Treatments were established to identify the contribution of insects, wind, gravity, self-pollination, and cross-pollination to coffee yield and quality. (3) Results: The insects contributed 16.3% of the berry set, 26.9% of the berry coffee yield, and 30.6% of the weight of supremo-type beans. No differences were observed in the sensory quality of coffee produced with or without insects. For stigma receptivity, results indicate that there is a 6.3% probability of self-pollination during pre-anthesis. (4) Conclusions: The species Coffea arabica , despite being a self-pollinating plant, benefits from the presence of flower-visiting insects. During anthesis, arabica coffee flowers are ready for cross-pollination.

Keywords: coffee; Coffea arabica; berry set; insects; flower visitors; coffee yield; coffee quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/7/1392/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/7/1392/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:7:p:1392-:d:1192735

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().