Pollination management is the horticultural practices that accomplish or enhance

pollination Pollination is the transfer of pollen from an anther of a plant to the stigma (botany), stigma of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds. Pollinating agents can be animals such as insects, for example bees, beetles or bu ...

of a crop, to improve yield or quality, by understanding of the particular crop's pollination needs, and by knowledgeable management of pollenizers,

pollinator A pollinator is an animal that moves pollen from the male anther of a flower to the female carpel, stigma of a flower. This helps to bring about fertilization of the ovules in the flower by the male gametes from the pollen grains. Insects are ...

s, and pollination conditions. While people think first of the European honey bee when pollination comes up, in fact there are many different means of pollination management that are used, both other insects and other mechanisms. There are other insects commercially available that are more efficient, like the blue orchard bee for fruit and nut trees, local

bumblebee A bumblebee (or bumble bee, bumble-bee, or humble-bee) is any of over 250 species in the genus ''Bombus'', part of Apidae, one of the bee families. This genus is the only Extant taxon, extant group in the tribe Bombini, though a few extinct r ...

s better specialized for some other crops, hand pollination that is essential for production of hybrid seeds and some greenhouse situations, and even pollination machines.

Pollinator decline

With the decline of both wild and domestic pollinator populations, pollination management is becoming an increasingly important part of

horticulture Horticulture (from ) is the art and science of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs and ornamental plants. Horticulture is commonly associated with the more professional and technical aspects of plant cultivation on a smaller and mo ...

. Factors that cause the loss of pollinators include pesticide misuse, unprofitability of

beekeeping Beekeeping (or apiculture, from ) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in artificial beehives. Honey bees in the genus '' Apis'' are the most commonly kept species but other honey producing bees such as '' Melipona'' stingless bees are ...

for

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of pl ...

, rapid transfer of pests and diseases to new areas of the globe, urban/suburban development, changing crop patterns, clearcut logging (particularly when mixed forests are replaced by

monoculture In agriculture, monoculture is the practice of growing one crop species in a field at a time. Monocultures increase ease and efficiency in planting, managing, and harvesting crops short-term, often with the help of machinery. However, monocultur ...

pine), clearing of hedgerows and other wild areas, bad diet because of loss of floral biodiversity, and a loss of nectar corridors for migratory pollinators. With the declining habitat and resources available to sustain bee populations, populations are declining.

Importance

The increasing size of fields and orchards (

) increase the importance of pollination management. Monoculture can cause a brief period when pollinators have more food resources than they can use (but monofloral diet can reduce their immune system) while other periods of the year can bring starvation or pesticide contamination of food sources. Most

nectar source A nectar source is a flowering plant that produces nectar (plant), nectar as part of its reproductive strategy. These plants create nectar, which attract pollinating insects and sometimes other animals such as birds. Nectar source plants are imp ...

and pollen source throughout the growing season to build up their numbers. Crops that traditionally have had managed pollination include

apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

almond The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', Synonym (taxonomy)#Botany, syn. ''Prunus dulcis'') is a species of tree from the genus ''Prunus''. Along with the peach, it is classified in the subgenus ''Amygdalus'', distinguished from the other subgenera ...

pear Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in late summer into mid-autumn. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the Family (biology), family Rosaceae, bearing the Pome, po ...

s, some

plum A plum is a fruit of some species in Prunus subg. Prunus, ''Prunus'' subg. ''Prunus'.'' Dried plums are often called prunes, though in the United States they may be labeled as 'dried plums', especially during the 21st century. Plums are ...

and

cherry A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit). Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet '' Prunus avium'' and the sour '' Prunus cerasus''. The na ...

varieties, blueberries, cranberries, cucumbers, cantaloupe,

watermelon The watermelon (''Citrullus lanatus'') is a species of flowering plant in the family Cucurbitaceae, that has a large, edible fruit. It is a Glossary of botanical terms#scandent, scrambling and trailing vine-like plant, and is plant breeding ...

alfalfa Alfalfa () (''Medicago sativa''), also called lucerne, is a perennial plant, perennial flowering plant in the legume family Fabaceae. It is cultivated as an important forage crop in many countries around the world. It is used for grazing, hay, ...

seeds,

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...

seeds, and many others. Some crops that have traditionally depended entirely on chance pollination by wild pollinators need pollination management nowadays to make a profitable crop. Many of these were at one time universally turning to honeybees, but as science has shown that honeybees are actually inefficient pollinators, demand for other managed pollinators has risen. While honeybees may visit dozens of different kinds of flowers, diluting the orchard pollen they carry, the Blue orchard bee will visit only the intended tree, producing a much higher fertilization rate. The focus on the specific tree also makes the orchard bee 100 times more efficient at pollinating, per bee. Some crops, especially when planted in a monoculture situation, require a very high level of pollinators to produce economically viable crops, especially if depending on the more generalized honeybee. This may be because of lack of attractiveness of the blossoms, or from trying to pollinate with an alternative when the native pollinator is extinct or rare. These include crops such as alfalfa, cranberries, and

kiwifruit Kiwifruit (often shortened to kiwi), or Chinese gooseberry, is the edible berry (botany), berry of several species of woody vines in the genus ''Actinidia''. The most common cultivar group of kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis var. deliciosa, ...

. This technique is known as saturation pollination. In many such cases, various native bees are vastly more efficient at pollination (e.g., with blueberries), but the inefficiency of the honey bees is compensated for by using large numbers of hives, the total number of foragers thereby far exceeding the local abundance of native pollinators. In a very few cases, it has been possible to develop commercially viable pollination techniques that use the more efficient pollinators, rather than continued reliance on honey bees, as in the management of the alfalfa leafcutter bee. In the case of the kiwifruit, its flowers do not even produce nectar, so that honeybees are reluctant to even visit them, unless present in such overwhelming numbers that they do so incidentally. This has led bumblebee pollination companies to begin offering their services for kiwifruit, as they appear to be far more efficient at the job than honeybees, even more efficient than hand pollination. It is estimated that about one hive per acre will sufficiently pollinate watermelons. In the 1950s when the woods were full of wild bee trees, and beehives were normally kept on most

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

farms, a farmer who grew of watermelons would be a large grower and probably had all the pollination needed. But today's grower may grow , and, if lucky, there might be one bee tree left within range. The only option in the current economy is to bring beehives to the field during blossom time.Delaplaine et al. 1994, Bee pollination of Georgia crop plants. ''CES Bulletin 1106''

Types of pollinators

Organisms that are currently being used as pollinators in managed pollination are

honey bee A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to mainland Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the ...

s, alfalfa leafcutter bees, and orchard mason bees. Other species are expected to be added to this list as this field develops. Humans also can be pollinators, as the gardener who hand pollinates her squash blossoms, or the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

ern farmer, who climbs his

date palm ''Phoenix dactylifera'', commonly known as the date palm, is a flowering-plant species in the palm family Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet #Fruits, fruit called dates. The species is widely cultivated across North Africa, northern A ...

s to pollinate them. The Cooperative extension service recommends one honey bee hive per acre (2.5 hives per hectare) for standard watermelon varieties to meet this crop's pollination needs. In the past, when fields were small, pollination was accomplished by a mix of bees kept on farms, bumblebees, carpenter bees, feral honey bees in hollow trees and other insects. Today, with melons planted in large tracts, the grower may no longer have hives on the farm; he may have poisoned many of the pollinators by spraying blooming cotton; he may have logged off the woods, removing hollow trees that provided homes for bees, and pushed out the hedgerows that were home for solitary native bees and other pollinating insects.

Planning for improved pollination

Before pollination needs were understood, orchardists often planted entire blocks of apples of a single variety. Because apples are self-sterile, and different members of a single variety are genetic clones (equivalent to a single plant), this is not a good idea. Growers now supply pollenizers, by planting

crab apple ''Malus'' ( or ) is a genus of about 32–57 species of small deciduous trees or shrubs in the family Rosaceae, including the domesticated orchard apple, crab apples (sometimes known in North America as crabapples) and wild apples. The genus i ...

s interspersed in the rows, or by grafting crab apple limbs on some trees. Pollenizers can also be supplied by putting drum bouquets of crab apples or a compatible apple variety in the orchard blocks. The field of pollination management cannot be placed wholly within any other field, because it bridges several fields. It draws from

apiculture Beekeeping (or apiculture, from ) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in artificial beehives. Honey bees in the genus ''Apis (bee), Apis'' are the most commonly kept species but other honey producing bees such as ''Melipona'' stingless be ...

zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...

(especially

entomology Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

, and

botany Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

Improving pollination with suboptimal bee densities

Growers’ demand for beehives far exceeds the available supply. The number of managed beehives in the US has steadily declined from close to 6 million after WWII, to less than 2.5 million today. In contrast, the area dedicated to growing bee-pollinated crops has grown over 300% in the same time period. To make matters worse, in the past five years we have seen a decline in winter managed beehives, which has reached an unprecedented rate near 30%. At present, there is an enormous demand for beehive rentals that cannot always be met. There is a clear need across the agricultural industry for a management tool to draw pollinators into cultivations and encourage them to preferentially visit and pollinate the flowering crop. By attracting pollinators like honeybees and increasing their foraging behavior, particularly in the center of large plots, we can increase grower returns and optimize yield from their plantings.

References

External links

Insect Pollination Of Cultivated Crop Plants
S.E. McGregor,

USDA The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commerc ...

, 1976
Raising awareness among Canadians about plant pollinators and the importance of monitoring and conserving them
J. A. Dyer, Seeds of Diversity Canada, Feb. 2006 {{Pollination management Beekeeping Crops Pollination Sustainable agriculture Fruit production Agricultural practices