[Pollinator] Fact Checking?

[Peter Kevan]

Hello All: 

There are a number of publications on the pollination and pollinators of Vaccinium species (blueberries and cranberries). I suggest they be consulted. Yes, honeybees can be used and are used for commercial pollination of cranberries and blueberries but the scientific literature generally acknowledges that honeybees are inferior pollinators on both. If the better, native pollinators are few as a result of production practices, then honeybees are a fallback even if inferior. 

There are again several papers on pollination in coffee, both robusta and arabica. I suggest they be consulted. Yes, Trigona spp. visit coffee flowers. If readers consult Dave Roubik's FAO Technical Bulletin on pollination of tropical crops, then one might be able to tot up 90 species. The reasoning of bodies being too small is irrelevant and fallacious (think about mango inflorescences). 

There are recent papers on Vaccinium and Coffea pollination in the Journal of Pollination Ecology. Their cited literature is useful. 

Peter 




----- Original Message -----

From: "Peter Bernhardt" <bernhap2 at slu.edu> 
To: "Bee United" <beemonitoring at yahoogroups.com>, "Pollinator List-serv" <pollinator at lists.sonic.net> 
Sent: Saturday, November 7, 2015 12:14:16 PM 
Subject: [Pollinator] Fact Checking? 

Within the last week there two statements appeared regarding the the pollination of crops. The comments of members working on bee-pollination of crops would be appreciated. 

1) November 5, Saint Louis U. A bee conservation lecture series was held. One of the speakers was Gerald Hayes from Monsanto on the role of honeybees and our food supply. Hayes insisted that our North American, cultivated, cranberries were pollinated by honeybees. Is this correct? I remember a seminar by Jim Cane emphasizing the importance of native megachilids for cranberry pollination. The speaker also insisted that blueberries were pollinated primarily by honeybees in North America. 

2) CJ Bradshaw and Paul Ehrlich released a coauthored by book from University of Chicago Press (my publisher) last month. On page 58 the authors insist that Trigona (species not identified) pollinates 90 species of crop plants including coffee. I know that most coffee marketed today is self-pollinating although it still yields sufficient nectar for introduced honeybees to make honey but what of the other 89 other crop species? I am aware that Trigona pollinate avocados, macadamias and a few other fruit/nut trees but, generally speaking, their bodies are too small to contact both anthers and stigmas as they forage. 

Peter 

_______________________________________________ 
Pollinator mailing list 
Pollinator at lists.sonic.net 
https://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo/pollinator 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20151109/ba31b9f3/attachment.html>