Kew scientists work on hot weather trees and new coffee species

While the climate change convention COP30 takes place in Brazil, a team of scientists in London is working on finding ways to help our changing planet, and keep topping up our caffeine intake.

The capital is the hottest part of the UK, and is home to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, where a new carbon garden has been created.

The tree team have introduced Parrotia persica, known as the Persian ironwood, and Koelreuteria paniculata, also known as the golden rain tree.

The coffee research team has been looking at crop species that can thrive in higher temperatures and under drought conditions.

Head of tree collections at Kew, Kevin Martin, said the idea was to “demonstrate what we should be looking at and what we can grow in the future when we think of our garden”.

He said it was “really hard to imagine how warm we’re going to be – but this is November and we’re in double figures.

“We should be in single figures right now and this is all having an impact on trees.

“What we will see is some trees will go into autumn really early, like the false autumns we see in the summer because they’re really stressed so we won’t see that big impactful change in colour.”

He added that there were many plants we can plant but “we need to start thinking outside the box and not go to our normal palette of trees”.

He suggested trees like the Oriental hornbeam and the Persian ironwood “provide amazing autumn colour but are really well suited to the future environment”.

Head of coffee research at Kew, Dr Aaron Davis, said his team was trying to help the farmers that are being impacted by climate change.

“The way we’re doing that is providing them with alternative coffee crop species so not Arabica, not Robusta but coffees that can thrive in higher temperatures, under drought conditions and are easier to grow for farmers.

“Around the world there are around 100 million people engaged in coffee farming and they need coffee to support themselves and their families so it’s incredibly important.

“It’s not just about the cup of coffee.”