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to increase the richness and abundance of flower visitors and fruit set in Cherimoya orchards

This research was funded by the CONICYT REGIONAL/CERES/R18F10008 project and executed by the Centro Regional de Investigación e Innovación para la Sostenibilidad de la Agricultura y los Territorios Rurales, Ceres. It should be noted that Camila García is a doctoral student funded with the support of Doctorado en Ciencias Agroalimentaria de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso and of ANID / PIA / ACT192027 and Pablo Díaz- Siefer is a researcher funded by this as well.

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The use of flower strips increases the richness and abundance of flower visitors in Cherimoya orchards in central Chile

3 orchards of cherimoya crops

1. Site study

Valparaíso Region, Chile

2. Experimental design

3. Floral strips establishment

4. Sampling

Mateos Z, Garratt M P D, Fountain M, Ashbrook K, Westbury D B. 2018. Wildflower strip establishment for the delivery of ecosystem services in sweet cherry orchards. Aspects of Applied Biology 139, Ecosystem and Habitat Management: Research, Policy, Practice, pp. 179–186.

Potts, S.G., Biesmeijer, J.C., Kremen, C., Neumann, Schweiger, P.O., Kunin, W. E. 2010. Global pollinator declines: trends, impacts and drivers. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 25 No.6

Tsukada M, Higuchi H, Furukawa T, Yoshira A. 2005. Flower visitors to cherimoya, Annona cherimola (Magnoliales: Annonaceae) in Japan. Applied Entomology and Zoology 40:317–324.

Urbina A, Vicencio V, Hormaza I, Tobar S, Aguado L, Lora J, García C, Labarca J, y Gratacós E. 2021. Melanophthalma Motschulsky, 1866 (Coleoptera: Latridiidae) como visitante floral de Annona cherimolla Miller, 1768 (Magnoliales: Annonaceae) en Chile central. Revista Chilena de Entomología 47 (2): 305-310.

CAMILA GARCÍA¹, JOHN LABARCA^1,2, PABLO DÍAZ-SIEFER^1,2, JAIME SOLERVICENS ³, EDUARDO GRATACÓS¹ and ISABEL GONZALEZ²

¹Escuela de Agronomía, Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Av. San Francisco s/n, La Palma, Quillota, Valparaíso, Chile

²Centro CERES, región de Valparaíso, Av. San Francisco 1600, La Palma, Quillota, Valparaíso, Chile

³Sociedad de Entomología de Chile, Casilla 21132, Santiago (Moneda), Chile

no flower strips (control)

with flower strips

1.To evaluate, the use of flower strips to increase the richness and abundance of flower visitors and fruit set in Cherimoya orchards.

2. Identify the floral visitors of A. cherimolla in the study site

• seeded ornamental flowers
• free-growing
• herbaceous flowers planted species

Spring of 2019

H1

H2

H3

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Methods

Results

Background

• flower strips fragments

• 100 m2 per orchard

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Recent decades have witnessed a sharp decline in the richness and abundance of pollinators, threatening the stability of the pollination service in crops (Biesmeijer et al., 2006; Potts et al., 2010). One way to deal with pollinator loss is incorporating flower strips in orchards (Mateos et al., 2018)

A crop highly dependent on pollination by wild insects is cherimoya (Anonna cherimolla Mill.). This crop is not pollinated by Apis mellifera, but by small insects, mainly Coleoptera (Tsukada et al, 2005; Urbina et al., 2021.)

In Chile, cherimoya is grown conventionally, and the soil is generally kept free of herbaceous plants, which is probably one of the reasons for the low abundance of flower visitors.

Therefore, manual pollination is usually carried out, representing 50% of production costs.

Goals

Urbina et al., 2021

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33 with flower strips

33 control

2020

2021

15 with flower strips

15 control

Cherimoya trees

Inflorescences (per tree)

3

10

References

Conclusions

Figure 1. Effect of flower strip treatment on cherimoya fruit set.

Table 1. Effect of flower strip treatment on cherimoya fruit set. P value from generalized linear mixed model.

Species richness

9 with flower strips

7 no flower strips

1. Effects of flower strips on fruit set of cherimoya

2. Effects of flower strips on species richness and abundance of flower visitors of cherimoya.

3. Floral visitors of A. cherimolla in the study site

Table 2. Species composition of flower visitors of A. cherimolla in the study site. Comparison between years of sampling and treatment of flower strips.

Quantification of:

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The richness and abundance of floral visitors and fruit set were greater in the treatment with flower strips than without flower strips.

We thank the owners of the orchards, Nersy Cortés and family, Carlos Peña and family, and La Estación Experimental La Palma of PUCV for allowing us to carry out this study in their orchards.

Acknowledgements and funding details

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Biesmeijer J C, Roberts S P M, Reemer M, Ohlemuller R, Edwards M, Peeters T, et al. 2006. Parallel declines in pollinators and insect-pollinated plants in Britain and the Netherlands. Science. 313: 351–354.

Relevance of the study and suggestion

Although this study is exploratory and small-scale, it is one of the few studies on incorporating habitat for pollinators in fruit orchards in the Mediterranean area. In addition, this study shows a complement to the manual pollination of cherimoya crops, which is important for small farmers, since it provides them with an alternative to reduce the operating cost of pollination, which is usually carried out by them because they cannot pay the workers. However, it is necessary to design floral bands that are more resistant to drought, since this was a difficult limitation to face during the establishment of the flower strips.