Ecological quality as a coffee quality enhancer. A review.

As both coffee quality and sustainability become increasingly important, there is growing interest in understanding how ecological quality affects coffee quality. Here we analyze, for the first time, the state of evidence that ecological quality, in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem functions, impacts the quality of Coffea arabica and C. canephora, based on 78 studies. The following ecosystem functions were included: pollination; weed, disease, and pest control; water and soil fertility regulation. Biodiversity was described by the presence, percentage, and diversity of shade trees. Coffee quality was described by the green bean physical characteristics, biochemical compounds, and organoleptic characteristics. The presence and diversity of shade trees positively impacted bean size and weight and reduced the percentage of rejected beans, but these observations were not consistent over different altitudes. In fact, little is known about the diversity of shade trees and their influence on biochemical compounds. All biochemical compounds varied with the presence of shade, percentage of shade, and elevation. Coffee beans from more diverse tree shade plantations obtained higher scores for final total organoleptic quality than simplified tree shade and unshaded plantations. Decreasing ecological quality diminished ecosystem functions such as pollination, which in turn negatively affected bean quality. Shade affected pests and diseases in different ways, but weeds were reduced. High soil quality positively affected coffee quality. Shade improved the water use efficiency, such that coffee plants were not water stressed and coffee quality was improved. While knowledge on the influence of shade trees on overall coffee quality remains scarce, there is evidence that agroecosystem simplification is negatively correlated with coffee quality. Given global concerns about biodiversity and habitat loss, we recommend that the overall definition of coffee quality include measures of ecological quality, although these aspects are not always detectable in certain coffee quality characteristics or the final cup.

Modelling the vigour of maize seeds submitted to artificial accelerated ageing based on ATR-FTIR data and chemometric tools (PCA, HCA and PLS-DA).

The main goals of this research were to use ATR-FTIR spectroscopy associated with multivariate analyses to identify biochemical changes in high and low vigour seed tissues (embryo and endosperm) in response to accelerated ageing and to create a model to predict seed vigour based on spectroscopic data. High-vigour seeds undergo minimal changes in biochemical composition during stress by accelerated ageing while low-vigour seeds are more sensitive to stress and this lower tolerance is associated with reduced lipid and protein content and increased amino acids, carbohydrates and phosphorus compounds in the embryo. High-vigour seeds show an increase in peaks associated with amino acids and phosphorous compounds in the endosperm after 24 h of stress while low-vigour seeds present these high-intensity peaks only after 72 h in the embryo. The results of this research provide the theoretical basis for the genetic improvement of maize cultivars that aim at higher physiological seed quality.