40 The Business of Prairie Agriculture Better Farming | July/August 2024 PUTTING POLLINATORS TO WORK ON-FARM Adjacent habitat & protection from pesticides greatly benefits them. By Graham Parsons Across the Prairies, summertime is pollinator season. Depending on the location and crops being grown, June, July, and August are when pollinators are busy. While cereals and other grasses only need the reliable Prairie wind to transfer pollen and set seed, many of our crops can benefit from insect pollination. So how can we work with them to help make our farms as productive as they can be? First, we need to understand pollination basics. The male parts of plants, the stamens, produce pollen, which have to meet the female parts of the plant, the stigma. Once the pollen hits the stigma, it develops pollen tubes, allowing the genetic material to travel to the ovules and fertilize them, resulting in fertile seeds. That’s the basics, but the timing, amount, and quality of pollen can greatly affect the seed or fruit quality and quantity. This is where pollinators come in. They can move pollen in different ways than just simple wind pollination or self-pollination. Most pollinators, and especially bees, are pollen collection specialists. They use pollen as a very high-quality food source, rich in proteins, fats, and vitamins to feed immature bees. They’re evolved as a kind of vegetarian wasp, specializing in plant pollen to feed their young. Part of this specialization is the fuzziness from the branching hairs covering most of their bodies. These branching hairs allow the bee to collect pollen very effectively. This pollen specialization makes them great at moving pollen and, as a result, great at pollination. Different from self-pollination or wind pollination, pollinators can transport more individual pollen grains from flower to flower. Rather than the haphazard and random movement of wind, insect pollinators are more directed. As well, they can transport more different genetic sources of pollen to flowers than self-pollination can, with the resulting outcross benefiting seed and fruit production. The movement of pollen by insects can aid fruit and seeds by moving more pollen. Transporting more pollen generally means that there is more pollen available to fertilize the ovules of a flower. In the case of something like canola, a pod and some seed will be created if a little pollen fertilizes a few ovules, but there may be unfertilized ovules if only a few grains of pollen make their way to a stigma of that flower. More pollen helps to ensure that all the ovules get genetic material to result in fertilization. The result is more seeds per pod or fruit and higher yields. How big is the benefit of insect pollination to crops? It’s a complicated question. It can vary with the plant species, environmental conditions, plant health, and the type of pollinators. As a result, estimates vary. For most of our forage species like red clover, alfalfa, sainfoin and Cicer milkvetch, nearly 100 per cent of seeds are a direct result of pollinator involvement. As well, some vegetable and fruit crops like haskaps, sweet cherries, blueberries, apples, tomatoes, dill, cucumbers, and pumpkins fall in that category. For plants such as currants, raspberries, and buckwheat, about 80 per cent of production is dependent on insects. In other crops such as faba beans, a partially self-fertile hermaphrodite, or sour cherries, cilantro, and our tasty strawberries, about 50 per cent of production is attributed to insect pollinators. Ag Insights Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture photo The fuzziness of bees, as shown on the honeybee above, is part of what makes them excellent pollinators.
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