On 4/26/2015 2:36 PM, Jeff Layman wrote:
On 26/04/15 16:31, Brooklyn1 wrote:
Jeff Layman wrote:
Hypatia Nachshon wrote:
It's not really OT, since the dire predicament of the pollinators
that give us our "daily bread" is of concern to home gardeners as
well as to consumers of commercially-produced food, organic or
otherwise.

The "pollinator" which gives us our "daily bread" is the wind. No bees
or other insects are involved. All cereal crops AFAIK are wind
pollinated, so our staple foods are not affected by the bee population.

What you know is incorrect.

I am afraid you have it wrong.
http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0512sp1.htm
"While not all flowering plants depend on animals for pollination -
cereals, for example, are wind-pollinated - most of the world's orchard,
horticultural and forage crops can only produce seeds and fruit if
animals move pollen from the flower's male anthers to the female stigma
of the same or another flower. "

http://www.plantbiotechnology.org.in/issue4.html
"The pollination behavior of the cereal and millet crop plants shows
that most of them are highly self-pollinated or wind pollinated. Biotic
vectors do not visit these species. In some other crop species biotic
vectors that visit the flowers only take what they want such as nectar
and/or pollen, and not necessarily pollinate. However, biotic vectors
are important pollinators of a considerable number of species of fruit
and vegetable crops and several wild species."

http://pollinators.biodiversityirela...f-pollinators/
"In terms of weight, 35% of the world food production come from crops
which depend on insect pollination, 60% come from crops which do not
(such as cereals) and 5% come from crops on which the impact of insect
pollination is still unknown."

Many other similar hits if you Google "pollination" and "cereals".

All plants are pollenated by wind to some
extent but wind alone doesn't do a very good job. Grain/forage crops
still rely *primarilly* on insect pollenation... you obviously don't
live in farming country for if you ever walked about wheat/corn/hay
fields you'd see more insect polinators at work than you can count,
and their noise is deafening.

I live less than 5 minutes from "farming country" (a lot less than that
if you consider the smells which are pretty common this time of
year...). I often walk through fields of wheat and barley and almost
never see bees in them. If there are any pollinators they will be found
on or around flowering weeds in a sea of cereals. They never visit the
cereal flowers as they get nothing from them.

Relying on wind alone most of the pollen would be blown away

Nonsense. It does get everywhere - particularly up the noses of hayfever
sufferers, but there is more than enough to go round to pollinate cereal
crops.


Nice references.
Appears the higher value crops of fruit and nuts need bees.
Would be interesting to see that ratio.
Around here, we are approaching the season where my cars turn yellow but
that is only a month or two. Then I wash them