Pollinator-friendly practices to enhance crop production in apples and pears

GESLIN, BENOIT; AIZEN, MARCELO A.; GARCIA, NANCY; LE FÉON, VIOLETTE; PEREIRA, ANA J.; VAISSIÈRE, BERNARD E.; GARIBALDI, LUCAS A.

Congreso; IV Congreso Internacional de Servicios Ecosistémicos en los Neotrópicos: de la investigación a la acción; 2015

A widely used means to enhance yield through pollination is to supply crops with honey bee colonies (Apis mellifera). However, their contribution to pollination quantity and quality to crop yield remains widely unknown. In the main fruit producing area of Argentina, we studied apple and pear pollination and the impact of pollinator practices that could make it more sustainable. Particularly, we studied the effects of crop and colony management on bee visitation and behaviour, fruit set and fruit quality and quantity. Pollination process relied solely on managed honey bees as we did not observe any wild pollinator visiting pear and apple flowers during our survey. Visitation rate and fruit set were positively influenced by visit frequency, which in turn was related to both hive number and colony size. High visit frequency was also related to foraging behaviour, which translated into higher pollination effectiveness of single visits. This work depicts a situation that might be widespread in the future if wild bee populations continue to decline, with the service of pollination relying on honey bees only. We thus suggest friendly-management practices to sustain bee population and colony performance. We discuss these results with regards to economic costs and benefits for farmers.