Role of Pollinizers for Optimizing Pollination Efficiency In Temperate Fruits Production

Fruit production is one of the most important diversification options for sustainable agriculture. Although India ranks second in fruit production at the global level but still the productivity per unit area is quite low compared to many developed countries. The causes of low productivity of temperate fruits are many and their magnitude varies from one location to another. Inadequate pollinators and fruit drop among various other factors are serious constraints and shall remain as one of the most critical and complex problem in fruit production. Pollination means transfer of viable pollen from mature anther to receptive stigma. Flowers are fully dependent on vector to move pollen. These vectors may be wind, water, birds, butterflies, bats and other animals that visit flowers. An abundance of pollinators sets a greater proportion of early flowers, results in an earlier and more uniform crop with higher quantity as well as quality of fruits. Failure or deficiency at any stage can result in crop reduction or total loss. The failure to set fruits may be attributed to unfruitfulness. This unfruitfulness is one of the serious problems of orcharding and its causes need to be understood properly for affecting control and obtaining acceptable production level. The causes to this problem are described under the following heads.