What is Pollinating that Plant?
You always wanted to know what pollinated rambutan, litchi, blueberries and all those other plants dependent on insect pollen movement? O yes, and also what is pollinating avocado?
Insect Pollination Of Cultivated Crop Plants
by S.E. McGregor, USDA
Originally published 1976
The First and Only Virtual Beekeeping Book Updated Continuously.
Additions listed by crop and date.
This book is out-of-print, but can be found on-line at ABE Books and then you can get the images that are missing from the online version of the book
https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/20220500/OnlinePollinationHandbook.pdf
This is an old book with a lot of old information, but a lot of it is still good. There is definitely more up-to-date information, but this is a good starting point. For avocado, another good source, or course is AvocadoSource which also has quite a number of articles on pollination of other tree species
http://www.avocadosource.com/search.asp
Recently a group of UC Riverside researchers met to align themselves around the topic of pollination - The biology, effects, interactions of the various pollinator and pollinizers and how they are affected by our environment and how we might be able to manage them better. The participants in this pollination group have all manner of expertise and hopefully their interaction will bring a synergy of understanding to this very complicated subject.
Photos: Syrphid (hover) fly, bumblebee, honeybee, thrips carrying pollen
syrphid adult
bumblebee on clover
bee avocado flower
thrips carrying pollen
My grove in San Diego County is very small, and I've always wanted to avoid renting honeybee hives. I've started putting in some of the plants (cosmos and sunflowers, e.g.) that Frankie said our native bee species particularly like and I've seen many appearing on the flowers through the summer. I'm eager to go forward with this approach during the upcoming avocado bloom season to see if I notice any increase in fruit set.
Posted by Greg Alder on October 12, 2017 at 3:11 PM