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Bees increase crop yield in an alleged pollinator-independent almond variety

Wild pollinators are declining and the number of managed honey bee colonies is growing slower than agricultural demands for pollination. Because of these contrasting trends in pollinator demand and availability, breeding programs for many pollinator-dependent crops have focused on reducing the need...

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Autores principales: Sáez, Agustin, Aizen, Marcelo A., Medici, Sandra, Viel, Matias, Villalobos, Ethel, Negri, Pedro
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7035345/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32081891
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59995-0
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author Sáez, Agustin
Aizen, Marcelo A.
Medici, Sandra
Viel, Matias
Villalobos, Ethel
Negri, Pedro
author_facet Sáez, Agustin
Aizen, Marcelo A.
Medici, Sandra
Viel, Matias
Villalobos, Ethel
Negri, Pedro
author_sort Sáez, Agustin
collection PubMed
description Wild pollinators are declining and the number of managed honey bee colonies is growing slower than agricultural demands for pollination. Because of these contrasting trends in pollinator demand and availability, breeding programs for many pollinator-dependent crops have focused on reducing the need for pollinators. Although numerous crop varieties are now available in the market with the label of pollinator-independent, the real dependence of these varieties on pollinators is mostly unknown. We evaluated the hypothesis of pollinator independence in the Independence almond variety, the fastest growing variety in California that is the main almond production region in the world. In this presumed pollinator-independent variety, we measured the effect of honey bees on fruit set, yield, and kernel nutritional quality at tree level. Fruit set was 60% higher in bee-pollinated than bee-isolated trees, which translated into a 20% increase in kernel yield. Despite its effect on almond production, there was no evidence that bee visitation affected almond nutritional quality. Based on these results, we recommend the use of bees, whether they are wild or managed, to maximize yield even in self-fertile almond varieties.
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spelling pubmed-70353452020-02-28 Bees increase crop yield in an alleged pollinator-independent almond variety Sáez, Agustin Aizen, Marcelo A. Medici, Sandra Viel, Matias Villalobos, Ethel Negri, Pedro Sci Rep Article Wild pollinators are declining and the number of managed honey bee colonies is growing slower than agricultural demands for pollination. Because of these contrasting trends in pollinator demand and availability, breeding programs for many pollinator-dependent crops have focused on reducing the need for pollinators. Although numerous crop varieties are now available in the market with the label of pollinator-independent, the real dependence of these varieties on pollinators is mostly unknown. We evaluated the hypothesis of pollinator independence in the Independence almond variety, the fastest growing variety in California that is the main almond production region in the world. In this presumed pollinator-independent variety, we measured the effect of honey bees on fruit set, yield, and kernel nutritional quality at tree level. Fruit set was 60% higher in bee-pollinated than bee-isolated trees, which translated into a 20% increase in kernel yield. Despite its effect on almond production, there was no evidence that bee visitation affected almond nutritional quality. Based on these results, we recommend the use of bees, whether they are wild or managed, to maximize yield even in self-fertile almond varieties. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-02-21 /pmc/articles/PMC7035345/ /pubmed/32081891 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59995-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Sáez, Agustin
Aizen, Marcelo A.
Medici, Sandra
Viel, Matias
Villalobos, Ethel
Negri, Pedro
Bees increase crop yield in an alleged pollinator-independent almond variety
title Bees increase crop yield in an alleged pollinator-independent almond variety
title_full Bees increase crop yield in an alleged pollinator-independent almond variety
title_fullStr Bees increase crop yield in an alleged pollinator-independent almond variety
title_full_unstemmed Bees increase crop yield in an alleged pollinator-independent almond variety
title_short Bees increase crop yield in an alleged pollinator-independent almond variety
title_sort bees increase crop yield in an alleged pollinator-independent almond variety
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7035345/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32081891
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59995-0
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