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pollination

Pollinators and Your Vegetable Garden: A Win-Win Deal!

May 28, 2018

Have you heard news reports that bees—especially honey bees—are in trouble? Media coverage often explains the vital role that bees play in our food production, attributing “every third bite” to these industrious creatures! There is so much more to know—and you can observe much of it in your own vegetable garden.

Squash Blossom & Honey Bee_Livin' Spoonful_CC BY-NC-ND 2.0_Flickr
Honey bee pollinating squash blossom

So, what is pollination? Plants, like animals, share a single purpose: to reproduce and create the next generation of their species. Unlike animals, plants cannot go in search of mates, so they need the help of pollinators to move pollen from the male part (anthers) of their flowers to the female parts (stigmas). Pollination is the first step in plants’ reproductive cycles, which ends with seeds that contain the makings of new life—the next generation!

So, what does the bee get out of this deal? While the wind, other insects, and even mammals, such as bats pollinate some plants, bees are the most well-known because they feed only on flowers. Yes, bees are vegetarians! They get carbohydrates from nectar and protein and lipids (fats) from pollen. Plants often produce nectar (the sugary syrup that plants make to bait pollinators) at the base of their flowers where pollinators must brush against the pollen-laden anthers and then inadvertently transfer it to a sticky stigma. But bees are not accidental pollinators. They forage for protein, carrying it either in the pollen baskets on their rear legs or in the scopa beneath their abdomens.

And, what do WE get out of this pollination deal? That’s easy: fresh, delicious, and nutritious food. And more than the food, we also gain an understanding and appreciation for nature’s beauty and complexity with real hands-on learning. Watch a squash bee stir early one morning after overnighting at the base of a bright golden flower on your pumpkin vine. See and hear a big fuzzy bumble bee grasp a tomato blossom, vibrate her wing muscles to generate buzzing at the perfect frequency to cause that plant’s anthers to release its pollen. Notice how the ground-nesting bumble bees and Southeastern blueberry bees pollinate blueberries, while the honey bee and the carpenter bee cut slits in the blueberry blossom petals to rob the nectar without touching the pollen!

Knowing more about pollination can help make you a more successful gardener and a better steward of the land.

Article written by Diane Almond, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer.

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Categories Beneficial Insects Tags bees, pollination, pollinators, vegetable gardens

Pollination – Did you know?

March 1, 2016

Our theme for March is Gardening for Pollinators. Over the next several weeks we will post six articles written by Extension Master Gardener Volunteer Diane Almond. Diane is also a Master Beekeeper and will be sharing a wealth of information about what gardeners can do to help pollinators. This is the first of her six articles.

It is rare for several days to go by without media coverage on the topic of pollination. While plenty of the coverage is fascinating if not informative, much of it is sensationalized or just plain inaccurate. This month, let’s investigate, and set the record straight. Where better to start than with a definition: What is pollination? In a word: sex, well actually two words: plant sex. Technically, pollination is the transfer of pollen from the male flower parts (anthers) to the female flower part (stigma) of the same plant species. Yes, flowers are the sexual organs of more than a quarter million species of angiosperms, from the giant oak tree to the tiny violet, from corn and camellias to pansies and peppers, from dogwood to daisies.

Sometimes a plant’s flowers are perfect, having both female and male parts, while some species such as cucumber, melon and squash have two different flowers, male or female on the same plant.

image

The Master Gardener Help Line often gets calls from home gardeners concerned that their squash plants aren’t setting fruit, and that the flowers fall off. A closer look will reveal that those first flowers on the squash plant are male flowers producing pollen; in fact if you check early in the morning you can often find squash bees sleeping in the flowers and then cavorting getting covered in bright orange pollen. Callers are encouraged to notice the flower differences, and to be patient, waiting a week or so for the plant’s female blossoms.

For some species, most notably the hollies, each plant is either male or female. Ever wonder why that large, healthy holly tree which is covered with tiny white blossoms and thousands of foraging bees in spring never makes any berries? It’s a male and all those flowers are producing gobs of protein and lipid rich pollen that bees gather in earnest, and in doing so inadvertently transfer to the flowering female trees in the neighborhood.

All species of holly are dioecious: individual trees or shrubs are either female or male. Top picture is twig from a male plant. Bottom picture shows twig from female tree, with close up of female flower with sterile stamen (no pollen).
All species of holly are dioecious: individual trees or shrubs are either female or male. Top picture is twig from a male plant. Bottom picture shows twig from female tree, with close up of female flower with sterile stamen (no pollen).

 

When pollen is successfully transferred, fertilization occurs and the plant sets seed and bears fruit, thus fulfilling its single purpose: producing the next generation with a slightly different genetic mix.

Animals find their mates by walking, flying, swimming, crawling etc.; flowering plants, rooted and almost immobile, need help from pollinators. Approximately 20% of the species have their pollen distributed by the wind; many of these species are the monocots or grasses which make a huge abundance of very fine, small-grained pollen since the wind is so random in its work. The other 80% generally produce nectar, scents and visual cues to attract and aid animal pollinators, mostly insects and especially bees, in transferring their heavier pollen. We’ll learn about the pollinators next, and about pollinator-friendly gardening.

Written by Diane Almond, Extension Master Gardener Volunteer

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Categories Pollinator Gardens Tags pollination

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