A Growers’ Perspective on Crop Pollination and Measures to Manage the Pollination Service of Wild Pollinators in Sweet Cherry Cultivation

Abstract

Recent declines in insect pollinators and the increasing dependence on insect pollination in agriculture present major challenges to ensuring future food production. As part of the effort to deal with this challenge, there is a pressing need to understand growers’ perceptions with regard to pollinator diversity and crop pollination management. At present, many growers are dependent on domesticated honey bees (Apis mellifera), however, targeted management strategies involving naturally occurring pollinator species might be necessary to ensure future crop pollination. In this study we used semi-structured interviews to explore growers’ knowledge about crop pollination and current practices to manage insect pollination in sweet cherry cultivation. Our findings suggest that growers have a clear understanding of the importance of pollination and its determining factors. However, with respect to their current pollination management, growers depend mainly on honey bees and only apply measures to enhance wild pollinator communities to a limited extent. Our study highlights the gap between the growers’ perception of the contribution of wild pollinators to crop pollination, and their efforts to manage these species. We conclude that this is due to a lack of communication of recent scientific findings on the contribution of pollinating insects to crop pollination through the information channels that are being used by growers today. It is therefore crucial that scientists, government and other stakeholders work together with growers and communicate scientific evidence as well as practical guidelines to growers.

On-farm experiences shape farmer knowledge, perceptions of pollinators, and management practices

“…To our knowledge this is the first study to examine farmer knowledge of non-bee pollinators across multiple countries and crops. Although the importance of managed and wild bees as pollinators of most insect-pollinated crops grown across the globe has been widely recognised by scientists (Garibaldi et al, 2013(Garibaldi et al, , 2017Rollin and Garibaldi, 2019) and farmers (Hanes et al, 2015;Garbach and Morgan, 2017;Park et al, 2018;Eeraerts et al, 2020;Maas et al, 2021), the role of non-bee insects has been largely overlooked until recently (Rader et al, 2016(Rader et al, , 2020Hevia et al, 2021;Howlett et al, 2021). The limited research on the effectiveness of non-bee crop pollinators (Rader et al, 2020) and their management on farms (Howlett et al, 2021) has provided an opportunity to assess farmer knowledge about these pollinators in the absence of extensive scientific research and management recommendations.…”

Fruit Development in Sweet Cherry

“…The nectar of sweet cherry is rich in sugars (from 28% to 55% sugar), the most abundant of which are fructose, glucose and sucrose, which are highly attractive to pollinating insects, including bees [22]. It is well known that insect-mediated pollination in sweet cherry is important for the production of a viable crop and besides the environmental conditions, pollinating insects are the most important factor governing yield [23]. Work by Holzschuch et al [24] showed that bagged flowers produced only 3% of the number of fruits produced by unbagged flowers and that the rates of pollination and fruit set were related to wild bee visitation.…”

“…However, even with this knowledge, less than 17% of growers provide trap nests for solitary bees in their orchards and rely on commercial domesticated honeybees (Apis mellifera) to carry out this function at a cost up to 1000 Euro per hectare-a considerable investment for commercial cherry producers. A recent review has outlined grower knowledge of the role of insects on sweet cherry crops [23].…”

Options for the generation of seedless cherry, the ultimate snacking product

“…Seedless/stoneless cherry fruit would be highly advantageous to the cherry industry. First, it is well known that sweet cherry pollination is mediated by insects, which is important for the production of a viable crop (Eeraerts et al 2020 ). Wild pollinators, including solitary bees, are essential to ensure sweet cherry yields (Eeraerts et al 2019 ); however, growers rely on commercial domesticated honeybees ( Apis mellifera ) for pollination at a cost up to 1000 euro per hectare, a considerable investment for commercial cherry producers.…”