Pod production of Prosopis juliflora (Sw.) DC. as affected by supplementary and honeybee pollination under arid conditions

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to examine the importance of honeybees and flowering dates for pollination and pod characteristics of Prosopis juliflora grown under semiarid conditions. Flowers of Prosopis were subjected to two pollination treatments: 1) open pollination and 2) supplementary pollination at different flowering dates from September to January. Number of racemes per node, number of flowers per raceme, pod per raceme, pod length and weight, seed number per pod, 100-seed weight, and total seed yield per node were measured. Prosopis trees produced an average of 6 racemes per node. Supplementary pollinated flowers had higher pod number/raceme but lower pod length and weight in comparison with open pollinated at all flowering dates except for January. Pollination treatment did not influence seed number or characteristics. These data suggest that although supplementary pollination increased pod set per raceme, bee pollination gave the same pollination efficiency and better pod quality.