Abstract
Poor fruit set is one of the most important horticultural problems of the rabbiteye blueberry industry. Rabbiteye blueberries require cross-pollination and several bee species are expected to transfer pollen from one cultivar to another. A novel method was developed to measure bee-mediated pollen dispersion in rabbiteye blueberry. Pollen diameters were used to predict the proportion of cross-pollen in bumble bees' pollen load. Bumble bees visiting blueberry flowers had low proportions of cross-pollen. It is proposed that inadequate levels of cross-pollination play a major role in the failure of rabbiteye blueberries to set adequate commercial crops. The composition of bees' pollen load changed with the phenology of the crop. Data indicate that the greatest likelihood for cross-pollination occurred around the time of maximum bloom overlap of the two studied cultivars.
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