ISCEP 2026 At Sunway Putra Hotel 17-18 August 2026
ABSTRACT
POLLINATION-BASED FLOWER MORPHOLOGY MATCHING WITH STINGLESS BEE AND VANILLIN CONTENT ANALYSIS IN CULTIVATED VANILLA SPECIES
Qistina JAMALUDIN*, Nurul Aliaa IDRIS
Faculty of Science & Maxine Environment Live Malay T Kuala Nerus Teangalaya *570034@cuted my
ABSTRACT
P24
Vanilla planifolia is one of the world's most valuable spice crops, cultivated globally due to its distinctive flavour and economic importance. Despite its widespread cultivation, vanilla production faces a major challenge regarding pollination, as effective natural pollinators remain uncertain outside its native range. Consequently vanilla cultivation relies heavily on manual pollination, which increases labour demands and production costs. This study first aimed to evaluate the potential of Malaysian stingless bees (Heterotrigona itama and Genietigona thoracica] as pollinators of K planifolia using a flower-pollinator morphology matching approach. Hierarchical clustering analysis revealed that functional bee traits, particularly body length and thorax width, were more closely associated with floral reproductive structures than head width. This suggests that pollination potential is driven by functional morphology rather than species identity. In addition to pollination constraints, vanilla quality and market grading are strongly influenced by vanilin content; however, global grading systems largely depend an physical pod characteristics that may not accurately reflect chemical quality. Therefore, this study also quantified and compared vanilin concentrations between V. planifolia and V tahiterais using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results demonstrated that V. planifolia possessed significantly higher vanillin concentrations (24847 mg/L) than Vtatensis [125.81 mg/L), reflecting species-specific biochemical regulation and precursor accumulation. Overall, this study highlights the importance of integrating morphological assessments for pollinator identification with chemical analysis to improve vanilla quality evaluation and grading
Keywords: high-performance liquid chromatography HPLC) analysis, mohology matching stingless bees Vonilla plenifee Villas
INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE ON ENTOMOLOGY AND PEST SCEP) 2006