Insect Pollinators and Confection Sunflowers with Dr. Rachel Mallinger
\u201cBenefits of Insect Pollination to Confection Sunflowers Differ Across Plant Genotypes\u201d with Dr. Rachel Mallinger.
Sunflowers are a hallmark of an American summer. They\u2019re grown for beauty, but they are also important industrial crops in America, grown for sunflower oil, for fresh eating (of the seeds), and for bird seed. And although we\u2019ve slowly bred them to be more independent of pollinators, sunflowers still partner with bees. And not just honey bees. More often, they partner with native bees.
Did you know honey bees aren\u2019t even native to the U.S.? And while just as charismatic in their own way, native bees might not fit the usual description of a bee that we imagine. Most U.S. bees don\u2019t have a colony, don\u2019t have a queen, and don\u2019t have a hive that sits in a tree. And yet these mostly underground, solitary dwellers are the ones that are so important for sunflowers (and many flowers).
Dr. Mallinger\u2019s research looks at the fascinating relationship between these species \u2013 the confection sunflower and native bees. She wants to be able to measure this relationship. How do sunflowers benefit from pollination by bees?
Tune in to learn more about Dr. Mallinger\u2019s research and to find answers to these questions:
- What are the differences between a honey bee and a native bee?
- Why should we care about native bees?
- What is Dr. Mallinger\u2019s favorite type of bee?
- How does pollination increase the yield of sunflowers?
If you would like more information about this topic, today\u2019s paper is available here: https://doi.org/10.2135/cropsci2017.03.0148\xa0
It will be freely available from 20 July to 3 August, 2018.
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If you would like to reach out to Rachel, you can find her here:
rachel.mallinger@ufl.edu
www.rachelmallinger.com
www.twitter.com/remallinger
Resources
CEU Quiz: http://www.agronomy.org/education/classroom/classes/835\xa0
For bees:
Xerces Society: https://xerces.org/
Pollinator Partnership: http://pollinator.org/
The Great Sunflower Project: https://www.greatsunflower.org/
Rachel\u2019s lab: www.rachelmallinger.com
Bee Identification: http://beesinyourbackyard.blogspot.com/p/poster.html
Bee Identification Book: https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10593.html,
Field, Lab, Earth is copyrighted to the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.