With the farming environment shifting into precision agriculture, we see farmers put all their efforts into managing fertilisers, chemical regimes and people management. But until now, there was still one element that solely relied on nature: pollination!
Well, not anymore. BioBee, partnering with BloomX, identified the shortfall in avocado pollination and mitigated this gap by bringing Crossbee – an innovative Bio-mimicking pollination device – to the market.
More than 75% of all commercially grown crops rely on insect pollination, yet the honey bee population struggles to keep pace with expanding farmlands. Rising temperatures and wildfires also hinder bees’ work. Furthermore, honey bees, as generalist pollinators, lack specific traits needed to effectively pollinate many crop types.
The stingless bee, native to Mexico, is the natural pollinator of avocados. Unfortunately, because of this, they are not commercially available in South Africa, leaving farmers with honey bees as their only option for avocado commercial pollination.
As opposed to the honey bee, the stingless bee is drawn to the Hass nectar and its size is compatible with the size of the avocado flower (Image 1). It uses an electrostatic charge to extract sticky pollen from the male flower (and apply it to the female flower). The Crossbee device relies on the same electrostatic concept and imitates the forces it’s using.
Avocado trees’ pollination mechanism
Avocado flowers consist of male and female flower parts on the same flower (Images 2 – 3). Each part opens only twice – in the morning, as a female and the following day afternoon, as a male flower.
Due to this behaviour, there is a short period during the day, in which there are both open (and susceptible) male and female flowers on the same tree, which enables the tree to self-pollinate (Image 4). When we look at cross-pollinating between varieties that have a type A and a type B flower respectively, the window for pollination is bigger (Image 5).
Using our artificial bio-mimicking pollination devices alongside our AI predictive algorithm platform (Image 6) farmers can reduce their reliance on honey bees and turn to technological means to help them gain control and certainty over their Avocado pollination and production process.
The Crossbee
Using Crossbee for avocado pollination (Image 7) could increase growers’ profitability, and with detailed data and analytics, enable informed decisions regarding pollination practices and yield predictions. In addition, growers can farm more sustainably by obtaining greater yields and better fruit quality without occupying larger hectares of land.
The pollination kit is made out of two main components, a Collector and a Deployer: The Collector, is a battery-powered lance that uses electrostatic forces to attract the male pollen onto reusable frames. The Deployer, is (also) a telescopic lance onto which the frame with the collected pollen is transferred to and then rubbed against the female flowers, to pollinate them.
Self- and cross-pollination using Crossbee
After the Collector’s frame is fully covered by collected pollen, it is removed and, whether self-pollination or cross-pollination is taking place, either directly put the frame on to the Deployer to immediately rub it onto the female flowers or store the pollen overnight to apply it the next morning. In the past three years, customers have managed to improve their yield production by up to 40% and increase the percentage of premium fruit by 55% out of the total production.
The goal is to empower growers with the tools and knowledge to control the pollination process, as they are already doing with irrigation, pest control and fertilisation. Growers can make informed decisions that will improve their certainty levels regarding yield predictions, and ultimately, sustainably improve their revenues by increased production and improved fruit quality.
To find out more about our artificial pollination technology and available data, get in contact with us or your local Laeveld Agrochem agent in order for the BioBee/BloomX team to elaborate further on how you can benefit from this technology and take pollination into your own hands.
Image 6: The pollination prediction platform
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