Posted on August 5, 2004 - by deCadmus

Seeing the Forest for the [Coffee] Trees

Researchers at Stanford report that growing coffee in proximity to tropical forests has a measurable, positive impact on crop performance…

“Higher rates of pollination by bees that live in the forest led to a 20 percent increase in coffee yields in the two nearest plots. In addition, the plants closer to the tropical forest had 27 percent fewer peaberries, or misshapen seeds, which resulted in higher quality coffee.”

While there’s no question that fewer peaberries nets a higher yield, I’m not certain I’d call these lovely little round coffee seeds misshapen. [!] But it offers an intriguing clue that might help solve the puzzle of why some regions produce so many peaberry beans… fewer or no bees!

More coverage at Nature, too.