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

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

Montpellier

Congreso; 27Th International Cong. for Conservation Biology (ICCB) - 4th European Cong. for Conservation Biology; 2015

p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; }Facing the global challenge of agricultural sustainability, anecological intensification of agriculture through optimization of ecosystem services has been proposed. Yet, little is known about the practices to enhance crop yield through pollination. A widely management procedure is to supply crops with honey bee colonies, but the contribution of pollination quantity (amount of pollen deposited) and quality (percentage of pollen tubes per pollen grains) to crop yield remains widely unknown.In the main fruit producing area of Argentina, we studied apple and pear pollination and analyzed the pollinator friendly practices that might make it more sustainable. Concretely, we studied the effects of crop andcolony management on the a) pollinator visitation rate, b) pollinator behavior, c) stigmatic pollen load, d) ratio of pollen tube/pollen grain, e) quantity of fruits, and f) quality of fruits. Surprisingly, we did not observe any wild pollinators during the 45 days of survey. The whole pollinationprocess relied solely on introduced honey bees, ofwhich we observed 1300 visits on the two crops. We found that visitation rate and fruit set were positively influenced by hives quality through beeabundance and organic farming. High bee abundance also affected bee behavior with highereffectiveness of single visits.Since this pollination system rests totally on just one introduced species, developing management practices that could sustain bee populations appears crucial. We suggest management practices to improve colony performance in regards to their development and health. This work has important general applicationsbecause it depicts a situation that mightregrettably be widespread in the future, if wild bee populations continue to decline, with the service of pollination relying only on honey bees. We will discuss these results with regards to the economic costs and benefits of pollinators friendly practicesfor apple and pear farmers in Argentina.p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; }