[Pollinator] native flower compensation areas and mango pollination

[Richard Johnstone]

Thus the reason IVM Partners has been educating electric and gas utilities
of the need to "manage" vegetation on their rights-of-way corridors to
naturally provide for native wildflowers and shrubs that provide pollinator
food and shelter, and access and reliability concerns of energy providers.
Energy ROW crisscross all farmlands and can meet the pollinator needs
without removing valuable cropland out of production.
Rick Johnstone


On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 8:55 PM, David Inouye <inouye at umd.edu> wrote:

>  Carvalheiro, L. G., C. L. Seymour, et al. (2012). "Creating patches of
> native flowers facilitates crop pollination in large agricultural fields:
> mango as a case study." *Journal of Applied Ecology* *49*(6): 1373-1383.
>  **        *** As cropland increases, fields become progressively
> isolated from pollinators, leading to declines in pollinator-dependent crop
> productivity. With the rise in demand for pollinator-dependent foods, such
> productivity losses may accelerate conversion of natural areas to cropland.
> Pollination easures involving managed pollinators or hand pollination are
> not always optimal or are too costly. Introducing areas of native
> vegetation within cropland has been proposed as a way to supplement crop
> pollinators, but this measure is perceived by farmers to carry costs
> outweighing benefits to agricultural production. Studies quantifying
> benefits of small patches of native flowers to crop pollination are
> therefore necessary to encourage such practices.
> * To ascertain whether provision of floral resources within farmlands can
> facilitate pollination, and hence, crop yields, small experimental patches
> of perennial native plants (native flower compensation areas, NFCAs) were
> created in nonproductive areas of large commercial fields of several
> cultivars of mango Mangifera indica.
> * Pesticide use and isolation from natural habitat were associated with
> declines in flying visitors and in mango production (kg of marketable fresh
> fruit), but presence of NFCAs ameliorated these declines, and NFCAs did not
> harbour any mango pests. In areas far from natural vegetation, orchards
> near NFCAs had significantly higher diversity and abundance of mango flying
> visitors, as well as mango production, than orchards far from NFCAs,
> although these measures were still lower than in orchards close to natural
> areas.
> * Neither the most abundant flower visitors to mango (ants) nor initial
> fruit set was significantly affected by distance, pesticides or NFCAs,
> suggesting that although fertilization is associated with factors
> unaffected by isolation from natural habitat and pesticide use (i.e. self-
> and ant-pollination), viable fruit set (and ultimately, production)
> requires cross-pollination, for which flying visitors are essential.
> * Synthesis and applications. Our results show that the presence of small
> patches of native flowers within large farms can increase
> pollinator-dependent crop production if combined with preservation of
> remaining fragments of natural habitat and judicious use of pesticides.
> Native flower compensation areas represent a profitable management measure
> for farmers, increasing cost-effectiveness of cropland while indirectly
> contributing to preservation of natural habitat.
>
>
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