NATIONAL

Ensuring crop pollination

Carole Curtis

Correspondent

Farmers and gardeners rely on crop pollinators, including wild bees, blue orchard bees and honey bees.

The loss of pollinators such as bees has emerged as a major environmental cause in recent years.

In 2017, Bee Health eXtension is collaborating with Integrated Crop Pollination Project and other experts to present "Bee Health Webinar Series." The presentations will explain how to support pollinators, as well as pollination requirements and strategies to ensure pollination.

The series includes pollinating apples and cherries, watermelons and pumpkins and getting bigger blueberries with bees, as well as how to manage solitary orchard bees for crop pollination.

The webinars will be moderated by John Skinner, University of Tennessee and Katharina Ullman, Xerces Society. Presenters include Theresa Pitts-Singer, USDA-ARS, and Rufus Isaacs and Julianna Wilson, Michigan State University

The webinar series is supported by a USDA-NIFA Specialty Crop Research Initiative Grant.