Saturation pollination

Last updated February 20, 2019

Saturation pollination is a pollination technique for agricultural crops in areas dominated by non-crop plant species that are preferred by pollinators. The technique involves keeping a larger number of bee colonies than normally maintained for honey production so as to exhaust the preferred plants and ensure visitation of the crop plants by the bees.^[1] The technique is applied in areas that are normally avoided by beekeepers because of poor honey yields.

Pollination management is the label for horticultural practices that accomplish or enhance pollination of a crop, to improve yield or quality, by understanding of the particular crop's pollination needs, and by knowledgeable management of pollenizers, pollinators, and pollination conditions.

Agriculture is the science and art of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities. The history of agriculture began thousands of years ago. After gathering wild grains beginning at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers began to plant them around 11,500 years ago. Pigs, sheep and cattle were domesticated over 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture in the twentieth century came to dominate agricultural output, though about 2 billion people still depended on subsistence agriculture into the twenty-first.

Saturation pollination is especially important for those with special pollination problems, such as crops with flowers that are unattractive to Western honey bees (kiwifruit, for example), that have nectar that is low in sugars, or crops that have been moved from their native areas without the corresponding movement of their normal pollinators. The keel of alfalfa flowers knock young honey bees on the head when they attempt to take the nectar and the bees soon learn^{[ citation needed ]} to come in from the side to avoid getting hit with the keel's pollen bearing structure while still getting the nectar. Thus only young, inexperienced bees are doused with pollen and able to pollinate alfalfa. Saturation pollination is becoming increasingly required for many crops due to decline of wild pollinators and monocultured crops.

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants. The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs. Flowers may facilitate outcrossing or allow selfing. Some flowers produce diaspores without fertilization (parthenocarpy). Flowers contain sporangia and are the site where gametophytes develop. Many flowers have evolved to be attractive to animals, so as to cause them to be vectors for the transfer of pollen. After fertilization, the ovary of the flower develops into fruit containing seeds.

The western honey bee or European honey bee is the most common of the 7–12 species of honey bee worldwide. The genus name Apis is Latin for "bee", and mellifera is the Latin for "honey-bearing", referring to the species' production of honey.

Kiwifruit, or Chinese gooseberry, is the edible berry of several species of woody vines in the genus Actinidia. The most common cultivar group of kiwifruit is oval, about the size of a large hen's egg. It has a fibrous, dull greenish-brown skin and bright green or golden flesh with rows of tiny, black, edible seeds. The fruit has a soft texture with a sweet and unique flavour. China produced 56% of the world total of kiwifruit in 2016.

History of the technique

The concept was developed by commercial California beekeeper Harry J. Whitcombe and University of California entomologist George H. Vansell in conjunction with alfalfa seed production.^[2]

The University of California (UC) is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-system public higher education plan, which also includes the California State University system and the California Community Colleges System.

Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was more vague, and historically the definition of entomology included the study of terrestrial animals in other arthropod groups or other phyla, such as arachnids, myriapods, earthworms, land snails, and slugs. This wider meaning may still be encountered in informal use.

Though fruit growers and beekeepers were well acquainted with the vital role of Western honey bees in pollinating fruit blossoms, the role of these bees in alfalfa seed production was poorly understood. In the 1920s California beekeepers began migrating into Utah during the alfalfa bloom; at that time Utah being the largest alfalfa seed producing state in the US. When alfalfa first comes into bloom the flowers are bluish-purple and the fields have a bright cast. As the blossoms are pollinated the flowers fade and take on a grayish cast, making the field appear dull colored. Utah farmers were convinced that the bees were somehow damaging the blossoms, and persuaded the state legislature in 1930 to enact an embargo against bees entering the state from other states. Alfalfa seed yields from the fields declined so precipitously that the farmers were going bankrupt. The error was realized and the embargo rescinded in 1934; however Utah had forever lost its pre-eminent position as an alfalfa seed growing state, and California took the lead. After World War II, demand for alfalfa seed reached an all-time high. Normally alfalfa is planted in rotation with other crops, because, as a legume, it replenishes nitrogen in the soil. However, wartime needs had caused many alfalfa fields to be converted to vegetables and other crops thought to be more necessary to the war effort. Now, the farmers were trying to repair the damage done to soils by replanting alfalfa. While the demand was the highest in history, seed production was steadily declining. Increasing pesticide use and the increased utilization of fallow land and hedgerows was depleting wild pollinators to near the vanishing point. California beekeepers produced a high quality honey from alfalfa, and were willing to move bees to the alfalfa seed fields at a rate of one and a half hives per acre. Experience had shown this the maximum rate at which bees could be stocked without damaging the honey yield per hive. Vansell and Whitcombe had become convinced by their observations that the optimum rate for honey production for beekeepers was not sufficient for optimum pollination and seed production. Whitcombe notes that he always observed the heaviest seed set in the plants that were nearest the stands of bees.

In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants formed from the ovary after flowering.

Alfalfa, also called lucerne and called Medicago sativa in binomial nomenclature, is a 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, and silage, as well as a green manure and cover crop. The name alfalfa is used in North America. The name lucerne is the more commonly used name in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The plant superficially resembles clover, especially while young, when trifoliate leaves comprising round leaflets predominate. Later in maturity, leaflets are elongated. It has clusters of small purple flowers followed by fruits spiralled in 2 to 3 turns containing 10–20 seeds. Alfalfa is native to warmer temperate climates. It has been cultivated as livestock fodder since at least the era of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Alfalfa sprouts are a common ingredient in dishes made in South Indian cuisine.

A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering . The formation of the seed is part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiosperm plants.

Vansell was finally able to convince Luther G Jones, the alfalfa seed specialist at the agricultural college at Davis, that further experiments in this area would be profitable. The plan was to stock some test fields at four to six hives per acre and see if the yield responded. It was called saturation pollination. But beekeepers were not willing to stock hives at a more concentrated rate, because they would lose money. At the same time, even though fruit growers had long been accustomed to paying pollination fees, no alfalfa seed grower was willing to pay for pollination service.

The University of California, Davis, is a public research university and land-grant university adjacent to Davis, California. It is part of the University of California (UC) system and has the third-largest enrollment in the UC System after UCLA and UC Berkeley. The institution was founded as a branch in 1909 and became its own separate entity in 1959. It has been labeled one of the "Public Ivies", a publicly funded university considered to provide a quality of education comparable to those of the Ivy League.

In 1948 the three were able to find a grower who was willing to risk a contingent deal. Stan Good, of Woodland, California, was a progressive farmer who was willing to experiment. But he would not risk any money. The deal was that Good would raise 150 acres (0.61 km²) of alfalfa for seed production, using the best cultivation techniques known, and Whitcombe would supply the bees at the rate of five hives per acre, again using the best management practices. For every pound of alfalfa seed produced above the rate of 400 pounds per acre (which was well above the area's normal average), Whitcombe would receive one cent per hive. And for all seed produced above 750 pounds per acre, one third of the seed would belong to the beekeeper.

Woodland is the county seat of Yolo County, California, located approximately 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Sacramento, and is a part of the Sacramento - Arden-Arcade - Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 55,468 at the 2010 census.

The result was that the plants set so heavy a seed crop that they could not support the seed head. True to his word, Good began irrigating, a practice not normally done, so that the plants would continue to grow and strengthen to support the seed heads. The plants began to grow again and put out more bloom, which promptly set more seed. At harvest time, the results of the experiment were so phenomenal that it almost ruined the experiment. The crop yield was so heavy that the harvesting equipment choked up and broke down. It had to be reworked by the agricultural mechanics at Davis to give heavier bearings and increased capacity. With seasonal rains threatening the crop was finished just in time to be measured.

The total yield was almost 1000 pounds to the acre - well above the 220 average California yield at that time. Both beekeeper and farmer were rewarded handsomely by the results. The word spread quickly and in four seasons California tripled its alfalfa seed production.

The saturation pollination technique was also applied to ladino and alsike clover seed production with corresponding increases. With California running three times the national average per acre for forage legume seeds, other states began to pick up California's techniques. By the 1970s and 1980s large scale saturation pollination had become the norm in US agriculture for many more crops which require bee pollination.

A supplement or alternative to honeybees

Today, research is ongoing in the use of an alternative pollinator, the alfalfa leafcutter bee for alfalfa seed pollination.

Related Research Articles

A honey bee is a eusocial, flying insect within the genus Apis of the bee clade. They are known for construction of perennial, colonial nests from wax, for the large size of their colonies, and for their surplus production and storage of honey, distinguishing their hives as a prized foraging target of many animals, including honey badgers, bears and human hunter-gatherers. In the early 21st century, only seven species of honey bee are recognized, with a total of 44 subspecies, though historically seven to eleven species are recognized. The best known honey bee is the Western honey bee which has been domesticated for honey production and crop pollination; modern humans also value the wax for candlemaking and other crafts. Honey bees represent only a small fraction of the roughly 20,000 known species of bees. Some other types of related bees produce and store honey and have been kept by humans for that purpose, including the stingless honey bees, but only members of the genus Apis are true honey bees. The study of bees, which includes the study of honey bees, is known as melittology.

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

A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees.

Pollination of fruit trees is required to produce seeds with surrounding fruit. It is the process of moving pollen from the anther to the stigma, either in the same flower or in another flower. Some tree species, including many fruit trees, do not produce fruit from self-pollination, so pollinizer trees are planted in orchards.

Beekeeping is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in man-made hives, by humans. Most such bees are honey bees in the genus Apis, but other honey-producing bees such as Melipona stingless bees are also kept. A beekeeper keeps bees in order to collect their honey and other products that the hive produce, to pollinate crops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers. A location where bees are kept is called an apiary or "bee yard."

The term pollinator decline refers to the reduction in abundance of insect and other animal pollinators in many ecosystems worldwide beginning at the end of the 20th century, and continuing into the present.

Apiary place containing beehives of honey bees

An apiary is a location where beehives of honey bees are kept. Apiaries come in many sizes and can be rural or urban depending on the honey production operation. Furthermore, an apiary may refer to a hobbyist's hives or those used for commercial or educational usage. It can also be a wall-less, roofed structure, similar to a gazebo which houses hives.

In beekeeping, bee brood or brood refers to the eggs, larvae and pupae of honeybees. The brood of Western honey bees develops within a bee hive. In man-made, removable frame hives, such as Langstroth hives, each frame which is mainly occupied by brood is called a brood frame. Brood frames usually have some pollen and nectar or honey in the upper corners of the frame. The rest of the brood frame cells may be empty or occupied by brood in various developmental stages. During the brood raising season, the bees may reuse the cells from which brood has emerged for additional brood or convert it to honey or pollen storage. Bees show remarkable flexibility in adapting cells to a use best suited for the hive's survival.

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

Hive management in beekeeping refers to intervention techniques that a beekeeper may perform to ensure hive survival and to maximize hive production. Hive management techniques vary widely depending on the objectives.

Stingless bees, sometimes called stingless honey bees or simply meliponines, are a large group of bees, comprising the tribe Meliponini. They belong in the family Apidae, and are closely related to common honey bees, carpenter bees, orchid bees, and bumblebees. Meliponines have stingers, but they are highly reduced and cannot be used for defense, though these bees exhibit other defensive behaviors and mechanisms. Meliponines are not the only type of "stingless" bee; all male bees and many female bees of several other families, such as Andrenidae, also cannot sting.

Vaccinium angustifolium, commonly known as the wild lowbush blueberry, is a species of blueberry native to eastern and central Canada and the northeastern United States, growing as far south as the Great Smoky Mountains and west to the Great Lakes region.

Beekeeping in the United States dates back to the 1860s.

Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is the phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a colony disappear and leave behind a queen, plenty of food and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees. While such disappearances have occurred sporadically throughout the history of apiculture, and were known by various names, the syndrome was renamed colony collapse disorder in late 2006 in conjunction with a drastic rise in the number of disappearances of western honey bee colonies in North America. Most European countries observed a similar phenomenon since 1998, especially marked in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, the UK, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, Switzerland, Germany and the Northern Ireland Assembly received reports of a decline greater than 50%. The phenomenon became more global when it touched some Asian and African countries too.

References

↑ McGregor, S.E. 1976. Insect Pollination Of Cultivated Crop Plants. USDA
↑ Whitcombe, Harry J. and John Scott Douglas, 1955 Bees are My Business. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

External links

Insect Pollination of Cultivated Crop Plants by S. E. McGregor, USDA 1976

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[1] McGregor, S.E. 1976. Insect Pollination Of Cultivated Crop Plants. USDA

[2] Whitcombe, Harry J. and John Scott Douglas, 1955 Bees are My Business. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.