Abstract
In Indonesia, hot pepper (Capsicum annuum) is one of the most important spices. Despite the fact that high yield cultivars and fertilizers have been applied to increase the annual production of this spice, local farming is always unable to maintain constant production. Studies to find the explanation of this problem mostly focused on pest attack while possibility of low fruit production due to lack of pollination was neglected. In this study, the effect of pollinator visitation to fruit set and quality was assessed by application of two local domesticated honey bees, Asiatic honey bees (Apis cerana) and stingless bees (Trigona laeviceps) as potential pollinator agents at hot pepper plantation. This study found that both bees had similar visitation rate whileA. ceranaspend less time in flowers. Visitation byA. ceranaandTrigona laevicepsimproved fruit set, fruit production per plant, average fruit weight, and fruit size. This result confirms the importance of cross pollination for hot pepper production and both species could be used as pollination agent for hot pepper. Advantages and disadvantages for each species as pollination agent for local Indonesia farm system are discussed in this paper.
Highlights
Hot pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) is cultivated and consumed around the world
We found that visitation rate of honey bee to hot pepper flowers similar to stingless bee (t-test analysis, P > 0.05) (Figure 1(a))
Asiatic honey bees have higher pollination efficiency, commonly domesticated by local bee farmers, and have wider foraging area which made them suitable candidate as pollinator agent of hot pepper
Summary
Hot pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) is cultivated and consumed around the world. Its major producers are United States, Mexico, Italy, Japan, India, and Brazil, where this crop has economic importance. In Indonesia, hot pepper chili usually cultivated at open field where local farmer usually apply best seeds, extensive weed and pest control, and monoculture system in order to obtain high yield. Despite all of these efforts local farmer could not maintain sustained productivity since open field cultivation highly depend on climate condition and ecosystem services, namely, pest control, nutrition cycle, and pollination to produce abundant harvest and good quality fruit [2,3,4,5]. Pepper flowers are largely self-pollinated, introducing pollinators could produce beneficial effects on fruit production
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