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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 24/04/2025

Excited about our new project, FLYTHRIVE, with Olombria, NRI, Asplins and Summerberry Company. Hoverflies are amazing: dual-purpose beneficial insects! They are good little #pollinators, and many species also help control aphids! The larvae of the aphid-eating #hoverflies are voracious little […]

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 13/03/2025

1. Agroforestry - including dynamic agroforestry. Some countries (e.g. parts of Brazil) have long traditions of shade-grown cocoa under either natural forest canopy or alongside native or economically-useful shade trees (fruit, medicines, timber, firewood, etc.).

Cocoa solutions: (Dynamic) Agroforestry
Cocoa trees alongside: - fruit trees (e.g. mango, papaya), - banana or plantain, - shading timber trees
Provides different forestry products
More complex environment = fewer pests and diseases, more resistance to drought, flooding, heatwaves
Image shows a stylised cluster of cocoa trees interspersed with other non-cocoa trees, including banana, shaded by a large tree that projects above the main canopy

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 10/03/2025

5. Pollination It's common for fewer than 5% of flowers on a cocoa tree to be pollinated under normal conditions. We still have big gaps in our understanding of cocoa pollinators & their needs. They may be threatened by drought, overuse of pesticides, & loss of breeding habitats.

Cocoa challenges: Pollination
Image showing cocoa flower cluster
Many cocoa varieties need pollination or they will not produce pods
Option 1: Natural pollination. Midges, other insects.
Threats: Climate change, pesticide use, farm management
Images show two small insects highly magnified, a midge and a parasitoid wasp.
Option 2: Hand (manual) pollination
Image of a human carrying out hand pollination of cocoa with forceps.
Drawback: costly, difficult, time-consuming.
Pollination is a problem for all cocoa-growing regions.

Solution bubble: Better understanding of the most important/effective pollinators, creation of habitat, reduce toxins in environment

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 10/03/2025

Cocoa is a highly-valued crop with growing demand, but for many of the world's cocoa farmers, getting a good crop is getting harder by the year. Let's talk about some of the challenges to environmentally sustainable cocoa production...and some of the solutions. #Cocoa #SustainableAgriculture

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 29/01/2025

If you're a visiting researcher in a lab, and a person comes in and offers to sell you a mango, and you buy the mango and eat the mango and it's delicious, and the next day the same person comes to the lab and offers you another mango and you buy that too...at what point do you have a mango […]

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 22/01/2025

Lots of discussion in Ghana at the moment about galamsey (in short, illegal gold-mining, but there is more complexity of course!). Causing destruction of cocoa farms (often without owner's consent!) and also ancient/semi-natural forest fragments. Solution is going to be complex and multilayered […]

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 21/01/2025

Just had a really exciting meeting with esoko team in Accra. esoko is an app w/ on-the-ground support, call centres, bulletins, etc. for farmers in various African countries, crops & farming systems to get up-to-date info (weather, market prices, pests, etc.), advice, training & support. Let's […]

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 04/01/2025

Can someone tell me what's the deal with some red peppers which, once they've been open for a few days in the fridge, start to smell like an E. coli agar plate? And why am I excessively bothered by this but many other people don't notice (or don't care)? It's just red peppers. Not […]

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 03/01/2025

Are you interested in research/innovation to solve challenges in sustainable cocoa in Brazil, Ghana or Nigeria? We are holding two free online workshops to prepare for future funding calls around climate-smart multilateral cocoa collaborations. 15th […] [Original post on sciencemastodon.com]

A cocoa tree trunk with about 4 large pods on it that are attractively green with dark red highlights on them. Cocoa pods are rugby-ball shaped and come straight out of the trunk.

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 30/12/2024

We got wonderful sunshine for the Kent Field Club #NewYearPlantHunt at Milton Creek Country Park and surrounds. Some cheery little flowers, a queen bumblebee (not photographed), a few dung flies using Apiaceae, some birds enjoying the estuary, some fun […] [Original post on sciencemastodon.com]

Yarrow - some delicate white flowers in clusters, with small floofy ferny leaves below. Background is grass and a kerbstone.

Narrow-leaved ragwort - cheerful yellow sunshine-like flowers about 1.5cm across, at the end of stems. The leaves are fairly dark green and narrow and spindly. The plant sits on a slope of mixed plants leading down to a paved area.

A pleasingly round and unblemished mushroom, probably 7cm across in real life. Colour is a creamy-beige-pale-brown. The edge is quite "crisp", with just a little bit of a turnup so you can see the hint of the gills below. Background is dead fallen leaves and green grass.

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 18/12/2024

Reading a paper from 1935 on pest management in orchards. On applying grease/glue bands to trees to control weevils/codling moth: "...none of the treatments proved to be as objectionable as those tried in 1934. The beta-naphthol bands in particular were unpleasant to put on since they caused a […]

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 12/12/2024

Quite scary seeing the figures on #cocoa production in 2023 and 2024. The start of the 2024 harvest was OK, but early signs suggest it may not stay that way. We apparently need a few good years of cocoa production to make the supply deficit, but climate change, ageing trees, #CropPests and […]

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 12/12/2024

Learning today at Choco-Tec that the shells of almonds, hazelnuts and other tree nuts can be ground up into a flour and added to existing nut butters/nut flours/nut milks and bakery products. Approximately doubles yield of food per tree and reduces ingredient cost. Interesting. #FoodSystems […]

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 11/12/2024

Learning lots at ChocoTec. Innovation in non-cocoa chocolate alternatives is quite exciting; chocolate-like substances from sunflower seeds, faba beans, etc. With current price volatility of cocoa beans (W. African crop failures in 2023 meant cocoa bean prices in 2024 peaked at about 3x normal) […]

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 10/12/2024

Very exciting first session at #ChocoTec2024 - fantastic examples of modernised sustainable cocoa farms, leaving opportunities for introduction of labour-saving mechanisation alongside supporting biodiversity; and discussion of rewarding cocoa growers for quality of product. #SustainableCocoa […]

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 10/12/2024

Nearly ready to start... At Choco-Tec. Looking forward to 3 days of learning about latest advances and perspectives in the #cocoa industry.

A crowded conference room with logos of many cocoa industry organisations on the wall.

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 09/12/2024

On my way to Choco-Tec conference in Cologne for a few days talking about all things cocoa! Bringing a poster about our JRF- and industry-funded work around #cocoa pollination. Pleased to be able to do the journey on trains and avoid flights. #CropPollination #Cacao #Agroforestry

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Reposted by Sarah Arnold

Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 03/12/2024

Do you work in any area of cocoa? We are seeking opinions on research priorities and challenges in the cocoa sector, especially production and processing. Please complete our form (5-10 min) to share your opinions/priorities […] [Original post on sciencemastodon.com]

A young cocoa pod hanging from a horizontal branch. A multi-coloured bug nymph is walking on it, facing down. The pod is green, and has a squiggly brown line of some sort of miner/borer pest across its surface. Next to the pod is a single cocoa flower, creamy white and about 1cm across.

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 03/12/2024

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 22/11/2024

Reminder: Niab's Soft Fruit Technical Day coming up next week (28th November). Free online event, 09:10 to 14:15 GMT, a range of short talks on how our research can be applied to soft-fruit growing systems. Crop physiology & biology, IPPM, sustainable growing […]

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 10/11/2024

Some offerings for #WildflowerHour : a hemlock Conium maculatum in the middle of a field being frothy and cheerful, and a Solanum nigrum covered in little white "stars" - they seem to have come up all along the edges of some of the local arable fields this autumn.

Amongst various small green plants, a Solanum nigrum which has white, five-pointed star shaped flowers with yellow centres, a bit like tomato flowers but white. The flowers are fairly abundant for the size of plant and time of year.

A plant with lots of branches coming out its central stem (which is green but mottled with brownish-purple markings). Each branch terminates in a clustered white frothy flower made of lots of tiny tiny flowers. The leaves are further below and are quite delicate/lacey. The view is more or less from above the plant.

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 06/11/2024

Grateful to be mostly offline this morning, attending the #NationalFruitShow, a useful trade fair for UK fruit growers, industry, producer organisations, researchers, etc. The fruit show element itself is a good chance to see the "best of" different […] [Original post on sciencemastodon.com]

A table containing clusters of extremely large pears, and rather large apples. The clusters contain 5 fruits each, of different varieties and colours from green through to red, but all are unusually large. Each cluster has a label naming the grower who produced it and total weight.

A long sloping display of boxes of apples, elegantly arranged so the fruit in each box all face the same way. The foreground has matte-yellow-brown apples of Russet varieties. Rich, shiny red apples are visible further along the display (Cox, Braeburn, etc. varieties). Some boxes have colourful rosettes indicating winners.

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Sarah Arnold @sejarnold.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 27/10/2024

Musk stork's bill Erodium moschatum for #WildFlowerHour, as it was still managing a few hopeful flowers before the contractors mowed them off again. It's become ubiquitous on grass verges in the village and I rather like it.

A plant growing at the kerbside in a grass verge, with slightly ferny, pinnate leaves and a pair of ~2cm across pink flowers with rather narrow, slightly tatty looking petals.

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