Coffee bees!

[Joey]

Hi!
I just wanted to share my recent knowledge about coffee plants -
If there are a lot of bees on the plantation - or better - if you have an apiary on the field - the plants will produce more flowers and therefore more coffeebeans.
Question - does the plant that produces more cherries still have enough "food" or "power" to make them good in quality, or will size and quality decrease per volume....? (like with wine, where the farmers tend to cut almost all branches to get less, but bigger grapes - quality comes before quantity...)

just a thought...

[ivdp]

Easy questions, complicated answers.
Coffee has a bi annual cycle - 1 good year - 1 bad year
More fertilizer, good watering, good pruning, good weed killing (not necessarily by toxins . .) >> bigger crop, but also better quality.
Every year there is also the wheather that plays an important role.
If all elements play together positively, you have a bumper crop with very good quality beans.
If the odds are against you, you have a poor crop in quantity as well as quality.

Ivo
www.ongebrand.nl

[Steve]

There is also the varital to think of the natural soil content, weather as Ivo says. Is all very complicated.

Ivo the Bi Annual thing, I've never heard of before. Good crop rotation I have but the one year good one year bad is a first. Is there any research why this is so?

Steve

[ivdp]

Maybe it is the same as crop rotation, which does not sound very familiar to me.
If you say bad I would translate that into bigger resp smaller.
Maybe I expressed myself badly.

Ivo

[kingseven]

Just a side note - I used some honey from bees on a farm in Brazil in my competition sig drink. It was lovely! I don't have much left now sadly, and I am saving it for WBC!

[ubo]

Coffee honey is becoming quite a common diversification activity for farmers esp in C America. Some of the government coffee organisations and NGO’s have been trying to encourage this for a few years. Ref the biennial nature of coffee, this is an established phenomenon and is largely caused by carbohydrate reserves being depleted in the plant during heavy crop years leading to a reduction in yield (typically highlighted early on by lighter flowering) the following year. This is found in other crops as well.

The biennial in coffee it has an enormous impact from a market standpoint and with an ‘up’ year in 2006 for Brazil it is partially why we are seeing the market down towards $1, at least until frost season !

[motoman]

I was a beekeeper many years ago, the benefit of having a couple of hives on the plantation is that the flowers are pollinated thoroughly so the crop is heavier. In places where heavy spraying has wiped out the natural pollinators, bees restore the balance and selective pruning by the farmers ensures that only the selected cherries mature.

I am a little confused by the bienial claim; good husbandry by the farmers and soil scientists will ensure a balanced Ph and a consistant crop every year. From my experience with the bees it is the weather that dictates the size of the crop as during the critical pollination phase a high wind or heavy rain can keep the bees in the hive and ruin the best laid plans.

[ubo]

Try 'biennial coffee production + brazil' as a search term in google for more info.