Can Caffeine Save The World?

Ever wish you could collect a group of scientists together and suggest a question for them to work on? Ok, maybe it is just me.  Here is the question which has recently sprung into my mind: Would introducing the genes which create the chemical compound caffeine increase crop yields? That’s just crazy you say. Well think about it. Plants have three main problems: 1) getting enough sunlight and nutrients to survive, 2) attracting pollinators, and 3) creating a way to keep from being eaten. Caffeine can help with these problems.

Problem #1: Getting Enough Sunlight and Nutrients

Caffeine is an allelopathic chemical which is known to kill, stunt, or stop seed germination of plants nearby. The caffeine is sent out through the plants leaves, through a process I don’t quite understand, which messes with the respiration of the leaves the plant is trying to kill. Plants can also send out caffeine through the roots into the soil and as the old leaves fall and decompose more caffeine is released into the soil.  From personal experience I can tell you caffeine is a darn effective plant killer. 

In the greenhouse I use to work in we had one raised planting bed with coffee and tea plants and no matter what other plants we tried to grow in that raised bed nothing worked. Once we learned of caffiene’s allelopathic properties we set up a slightly scientific experiment using sterilized soil, grass seed, leaves of the coffee plant and tea plant, and distilled water. We grew three pots of grass and once they had reached a certain size we put the same amount of tea and coffee leaves into a blender with some distilled water and “watered” the two pots of grass with the leaf water. In two months’ time we had killed the grass treated with tea or coffee leaf water.

Problem #2: How to Attract Pollinators.   

Again caffeine appears to help here too especially with honey bees. Dr. Geraldine Wright at Newcastle University in England last month published a paper about how caffeine affected the learning behavior of honey bees. It seems that plants which create nectar with a little bit of caffeine in it get more repeat pollinators. Bees which get nectar with a little bit of caffeine in it seem to remember the plant's smell better. Bees associate the scent of the flower with whatever “buzz” like feeling they get from the caffeine. 

What would be cool here is to take the bees from Dr. Barrett A.Klein's study which he woke up using his “insominator” device and see if giving them a little bit of caffeine in the morning helps them to communicate better with their hive mates about the location of good flowers.

Problem #3: Creating A Way To Keep From Being Eaten

Yep, caffeine is useful here too. If you were to eat straight caffeine you would notice that it has a very unpleasant bitter taste. The bitter taste helps to keep away hungry herbivores and caffeine concentrations in leaves and plant stems can be lethal to many plant eating insects and slugs.

Ok, scientists of the world I have given you something to think about now go see if this all makes any practical sense.