POLLINATION DEFICITS IN UK APPLE ORCHARDS

By M. Garratt, C. L. Truslove, Duncan J. Coston, R. Evans, Ellen Moss, Cassie-Ann Dodson, N. Jenner, S. Potts. 2014

94 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Apple production in the UK is worth over £100 million per annum and this production is heavily dependent on insect pollination. Despite its importance, it is not clear which insect pollinators carry out the majority of this pollination. Furthermore, it is unknown whether current UK apple production, in terms of both yield and quality, suffers pollination deficits and whether production value could be increased through effective management of pollination services. The present study set out to address some of these unknowns and showed that solitary bee activity is high in orchards and that they could be making a valuable contribution to pollination. Furthermore, fruit set and apple seed number were found to be suffering potential pollination deficits although these were not reflected in apple quality. Deficits could be addressed through orchard management practices to improve the abundance and diversity of wild pollinators. Such practices include provision of additional floral resources and nesting habitats as well as preservation of semi-natural areas. The cost effectiveness of such strategies would need to be understood taking into account the potential gains to the apple industry.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Insect Science, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2f482308b69e3261e9e62172d888c70203c6c9b4

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

1. L. Garibaldi
2. M. Aizen
3. J. Ollerton
4. B. Danforth
5. Mia G. Park
6. B. Vaissière
7. R. Mallinger
8. E. J. Blitzer

In Insect Science

1. M. Aizen
2. L. Garibaldi
3. J. Ollerton
4. Mia G. Park
5. B. Vaissière
6. R. Mallinger
7. E. J. Blitzer
8. B. Danforth

In Plant Science

1. L. Garibaldi
2. M. Aizen
3. J. Ollerton
4. B. Vaissière
5. E. J. Blitzer
6. B. Danforth
7. J. Gibbs
8. Claudio Gratton

Citations in the corpus

• The impact of honey bee colony quality on crop yield and farmers’ profit in apples and pears (2017, background): “However, high fruit set can have negative implications for fruit quality because high fruit loads can negatively affect individual apple size and weight (Volz et al., 1996; Garratt et al., 2013).”
• Species richness of wild bees, but not the use of managed honeybees, increases fruit set of a pollinator-dependent crop (2015, background): “A recent study showed that even with hand pollination, which ensures adequate pollen deposition, proportion of apple fruit set varied from branch to branch, but was always <0 3 due to non-pollination factors (Garratt et al. 2014).”
• Pollination services for apple are dependent on diverse wild bee communities (2016, background): “Although honey bees are generally viewed as essential pollinators in apple orchards, apple blossoms are also visited by a diverse community of wild pollinators (Sheffield et al., 2013; Garratt et al., 2014b; Park et al., 2015; Russo et al., 2015).”
• Pollinator Diversity: Distribution, Ecological Function, and Conservation (2017, background): “There are numerous examples of crops that have an increased and/or better quality yield when pollinator diversity is high—for example, coffee (Klein et al. 2003), cherries (Holzschuh et al. 2012), apples (Blitzer et al. 2016, Garratt et al. 2014a), and holly and mistletoe (Ollerton et al. 2016).”