Next Time You Eat a Kiwifruit, Don’t Thank a Bee
奧本大學(xué)昆蟲(chóng)學(xué)家 Anthony Abbate 博士《經(jīng)濟(jì)昆蟲(chóng)學(xué)雜志》2023年3月刊登
Honey bees and bumble bees excel at pollinating wide varieties of plants and crops, but kiwifruit is not one of them. A study investigating kiwifruit pollination methods found fruit developed on barely 3 percent of bee-pollinated flowers, leaving artificial pollination (by human hand) as the primary choice for kiwifruit growers.
By Andrew Porterfield
蜜蜂和大黃蜂擅長(zhǎng)為各種植物和農(nóng)作物授粉，但獼猴桃不是其中之一。一項(xiàng)研究獼猴桃授粉方法的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，只有 3% 的蜜蜂授粉花朵結(jié)出果實(shí)，因此人工授粉（人工授粉）成為獼猴桃種植者的首選。
▲B(niǎo)ees pollinate kiwifruit
The kiwifruit, a native of China that is now cultivated worldwide, depends on efficient pollination to reach a marketable size. In fact, fruit size has a straight-line relationship to grains of pollen. Until now, however, no studies have looked at what type of pollination—insect, wind, or artificial—does the job best.
獼猴桃原產(chǎn)于中國(guó)，目前在世界各地都有種植，其果實(shí)需要有效的授粉才能長(zhǎng)到可銷(xiāo)售的大小。事實(shí)上，果實(shí)大小與花粉粒呈直線關(guān)系。然而，到目前為止，還沒(méi)有研究調(diào)查哪種授粉方式（昆蟲(chóng)、風(fēng)或人工）效果最好。
▲B(niǎo)ee pollination
Anthony Abbate, Ph.D., research entomologist at Auburn University, and colleagues at Auburn and at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, have found that managed honey bees (Apis mellifera) and bumble bees (Bombus impatiens) are rather woefully inadequate in providing enough pollen to maintain commercial kiwifruit size. Their study, believed to be the first of its kind, was published in March in the Journal of Economic Entomology.
奧本大學(xué)昆蟲(chóng)學(xué)家 Anthony Abbate 博士及其同事和美國(guó)農(nóng)業(yè)部農(nóng)業(yè)研究服務(wù)中心的同事發(fā)現(xiàn)，人工飼養(yǎng)的蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）和大黃蜂（Bombus impatiens）無(wú)法提供足夠的花粉來(lái)維持商業(yè)獼猴桃的大小。他們的研究被認(rèn)為是同類(lèi)研究中的首例，于 3 月發(fā)表在《經(jīng)濟(jì)昆蟲(chóng)學(xué)雜志》上。
▲B(niǎo)ee pollination
“The biggest surprise? We thought insects would do a decent job at pollination. We didn’t see that,” Abbate says. The scientists studied three types of pollination—artificial (hand spread), bees, and wind—and compared the resulting fruit development. (They also tested a fourth group of plants in which flowers were covered to prevent pollen from spreading at all, as a control group.) They found that artificial pollination resulted in fruit developing on more than 97 percent of flowers. Insect pollination was a distant second place, with just about 3 percent of flowers developing fruit.
“最大的驚喜是什么？我們?cè)詾槔ハx(chóng)授粉會(huì)做得不錯(cuò)。但我們沒(méi)有看到，”阿貝特說(shuō)?？茖W(xué)家研究了三種授粉方式——人工授粉、蜜蜂授粉和風(fēng)授粉，并比較了由此產(chǎn)生的果實(shí)發(fā)育情況。（他們還測(cè)試了第四組植物，其中花朵被覆蓋以防止花粉傳播，作為對(duì)照組。）他們發(fā)現(xiàn)人工授粉導(dǎo)致超過(guò) 97% 的花朵結(jié)出果實(shí)。昆蟲(chóng)授粉排在第二位，只有大約 3% 的花朵結(jié)出果實(shí)。
▲黃心獼猴桃花粉
A man in a yellow t-shirt, a dark blue hat, and sunglasses stands below the horizontal branches of a kiwifruit plant in an orchard. He holds a hand puffer device: a long pole with one end held upward close to a plant flower, where a small white canister is attached to the pole. At the other end of the pole, held downward, the man holds a small black bladder attached a tube that runs through the pole.
果園里，一名身穿黃色 T 恤、頭戴深藍(lán)色帽子、戴著太陽(yáng)鏡的男子站在獼猴桃樹(shù)的水平枝條下。他手持一個(gè)手持吸氣裝置：一根長(zhǎng)桿，一端向上靠近植物花朵，桿上連接著一個(gè)白色小罐。桿的另一端向下，男子手持一個(gè)黑色小氣囊，氣囊上連接著一根穿過(guò)桿的管子。
▲Kiwi pollination▲
While a study investigating kiwifruit pollination methods found fruit developed on barely 3 percent of bee-pollinated flowers, artificial pollination using a hand-puffer device—as demonstrated here by Auburn University entomologist Anthony Abbate, Ph.D.—resulted in fruit developing on 97 percent of flowers.
一項(xiàng)研究獼猴桃授粉方法的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，蜜蜂授粉的花朵中只有 3% 能夠結(jié)出果實(shí)，而使用手動(dòng)吹氣裝置進(jìn)行人工授粉（正如奧本大學(xué)昆蟲(chóng)學(xué)家 Anthony Abbate 博士在此展示的那樣）可使 97% 的花朵結(jié)出果實(shí)。
▲Electric kiwi pollen pollination equipment that has been widely used in recent years
This of course, creates an expensive problem for kiwifruit farmers. “If you’re a commercial grower, you want large fruits that will sell,” Abbate says. “They’re throwing a lot of money to pollinate a crop multiple ways. Farmers stock honey bees and bumble bees but also use artificial pollination. This starts to cost thousands of dollars per acre. You have to pay to apply the pollen, too.”
這當(dāng)然給獼猴桃種植戶帶來(lái)了昂貴的問(wèn)題?！叭绻闶巧虡I(yè)種植者，你希望收獲大顆的果實(shí)以便出售，”阿巴特說(shuō)?！八麄兺度氪罅抠Y金，通過(guò)多種方式為作物授粉。農(nóng)民飼養(yǎng)蜜蜂和大黃蜂，但也使用人工授粉。每英畝的成本高達(dá)數(shù)千美元。你還必須支付使用花粉的費(fèi)用。”
▲Kiwi pollination▲
To study the pollination methods, the researchers experimented in a 180-acre kiwifruit orchard in central Alabama, from April to October. Since kiwifruit plants are either male or female (males pollinate the females to produce the fruit), each row in the orchard alternated between one female golden flesh kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis) and one of three male cultivars. Four bumble bee quads (16 colonies in total) and 12 honey bee colonies were placed in the orchard a day before the start of the kiwifruit’s bloom. The researchers then captured the bees and quantified the pollen being carried. They also carried out the pollen exclusion study, looking for the relative contribution of each pollination method.
為了研究授粉方法，研究人員在阿拉巴馬州中部一個(gè)占地 180 英畝的獼猴桃園進(jìn)行了實(shí)驗(yàn)，時(shí)間從 4 月到 10 月。由于獼猴桃植株要么是雄性要么是雌性（雄性給雌性授粉以產(chǎn)生果實(shí)），果園中的每一行交替種植一株雌性金果獼猴桃（Actinidia chinensis）和三種雄性品種之一。在獼猴桃開(kāi)花前一天，果園中放置了四群大黃蜂（共 16 個(gè)蜂群）和 12 個(gè)蜜蜂蜂群。然后，研究人員捕捉了蜜蜂并量化了攜帶的花粉。他們還進(jìn)行了花粉排除研究，尋找每種授粉方法的相對(duì)貢獻(xiàn)。
▲Picking kiwifruit flowers
Artificial pollination resulted in 97.4 percent of fruit set per flower, compared to 3.1 percent for insects, 0.4 percent for wind, and 0.4 percent for pollen exclusion.
人工授粉使每朵花的果實(shí)結(jié)實(shí)率達(dá)到 97.4%，而昆蟲(chóng)授粉的結(jié)實(shí)率僅為 3.1%，風(fēng)授粉的結(jié)實(shí)率僅為 0.4%，花粉排除的結(jié)實(shí)率僅為 0.4%。
▲Kiwi male flower
Clearly, artificial pollination is by far the superior method for growing commercially viable kiwifruit. The problem with bees is not actually with the bees themselves, however. Abbate says the inadequacy of insect pollination on kiwifruit is probably an unusual situation, created by active breeding of trees with larger fruit.
顯然，人工授粉是迄今為止種植具有商業(yè)價(jià)值的獼猴桃的最佳方法。然而，蜜蜂的問(wèn)題實(shí)際上并不在于蜜蜂本身。阿巴特說(shuō)，獼猴桃昆蟲(chóng)授粉不足可能是一種不尋常的情況，這是由于主動(dòng)培育果實(shí)較大的樹(shù)造成的。
▲Picking kiwifruit flowers
Native kiwifruit is much smaller than its commercial cultivar. For native plants, insect pollination is more than sufficient for reproduction and successful (albeit small) fruit production. That advantage disappeared once fruits were increased in size through breeding.
本土獼猴桃比其商業(yè)栽培品種小得多。對(duì)于本土植物來(lái)說(shuō)，昆蟲(chóng)授粉足以繁殖并成功（盡管果實(shí)很?。┥a(chǎn)。一旦通過(guò)育種增加果實(shí)尺寸，這種優(yōu)勢(shì)就消失了。
▲Collect kiwi blossoms
Wide view of a row of kiwifruit plants in an orchard. In the foreground is a thick wooden post, with additional posts spaced out along the length of the row stretching in to the distance. Between each post is two or three kiwifruit plants, extending up from the ground and connected to cords stretched between the wooden posts to aid the plants' stability when fruit grows.
果園中一排獼猴桃植株的廣角圖。前景是一根粗木柱，沿著行長(zhǎng)延伸到遠(yuǎn)處的其他木柱間隔開(kāi)來(lái)。每根木柱之間有兩三棵獼猴桃植株，從地面向上延伸并連接到木柱之間伸展的繩索，以幫助植株在果實(shí)生長(zhǎng)時(shí)保持穩(wěn)定性。
▲獼猴桃花粉冷藏保存運(yùn)輸Kiwi pollen refrigerated storage and transportation
Why don’t bees succeed in pollinating commercially grown kiwifruit? Native kiwifruit is much smaller than its commercial cultivar. For native plants, insect pollination is more than sufficient for reproduction and successful (albeit small) fruit production. That advantage disappears for commercial cultivars.
為什么蜜蜂無(wú)法成功為商業(yè)種植的獼猴桃授粉？本土獼猴桃比其商業(yè)栽培品種小得多。對(duì)于本土植物，昆蟲(chóng)授粉足以繁殖并成功（盡管果實(shí)較?。┥a(chǎn)。對(duì)于商業(yè)栽培品種，這種優(yōu)勢(shì)消失了。
▲采摘獼猴桃雄花
Another problem is that bees get distracted. The kiwifruit bloom season is relatively short, about one to two weeks, and occurs in the spring in Alabama. “A lot of other flowers bloom at the same time. Also, kiwi flowers don’t produce a nectar source,” Abbate says. In fact, the study showed that honey bees carried pollen from nine other plant species besides kiwifruit (and kiwifruit constituted just 21 percent of pollen carried). Bumble bees carried more pollen but also had pollen from nine other plant species.
另一個(gè)問(wèn)題是蜜蜂會(huì)分心。獼猴桃花期相對(duì)較短，大約一到兩周，發(fā)生在阿拉巴馬州的春季?！霸S多其他花朵同時(shí)盛開(kāi)。此外，獼猴桃花不會(huì)產(chǎn)生花蜜來(lái)源，”阿巴特說(shuō)。事實(shí)上，研究表明，蜜蜂攜帶的花粉除了獼猴桃外，還有來(lái)自其他九種植物的花粉（獼猴桃只占攜帶花粉的 21%）。大黃蜂攜帶的花粉更多，但也有來(lái)自其他九種植物的花粉。
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Together, both issues make it nearly impossible for bees to carry the approximate 4,000 pollen grains needed to produce each large kiwifruit. “The plants will have fruits,” Abbate says, “but not the optimal commercial fruit.”
這兩個(gè)問(wèn)題加在一起，使得蜜蜂幾乎不可能攜帶生產(chǎn)每個(gè)大獼猴桃所需的大約 4,000 個(gè)花粉粒?！斑@些植物會(huì)結(jié)出果實(shí)，”阿巴特說(shuō)，“但不是最佳的商業(yè)果實(shí)?！?/p>
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原文連接：https://entomologytoday.org/2023/05/10/kiwifruit-pollination-bees-artificial/
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