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Showing posts with the label pollinators

Loss of pollinators causing more than 400,000 early deaths a year: study

CTV News A recent study says pollination loss may be leading to hundreds of thousands of excess deaths worldwide as supplies of healthy food become less plentiful. More here.

Some revolutionary advice for producers of seedless watermelon - and perhaps other fruits and vegetables, too!

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by Larry Powell A wild bee on a sunflower. A PinP photo.   For two years, US researchers studied the impact that both bee pollinators and beetle pests had on seedless watermelon.         What they found was striking.          Flea beetles feast on turnip-tops in Manitoba, A PinP photo.       In both years, p ollination by the bees was “the only significant factor” in both fruit set and marketable yield - even when compared to the harm done by the pests. Not only that, the wild bees increased those yields anywhere from one-&-a-half to three times more than honeybees.      So the researchers conclude; If you want better yields, it’s more important to protect the bees that pollinate them than to kill the pests which eat them!       “These data," they state, "advocate for a reprioritization of management, to conserve and protect wild bee pollinations, which could be more critical than avoiding pest damage for ensuring high yields.”      But the lead author of the study, As

Health Canada approves another product known to be deadly to beneficial organisms.

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The Western Producer Members of the "neonic" family are known mass-killers, esp. of pollinators such as honeybees. "Karen" holds dead bees at Hayes Valley Farm. Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency has announced that neonicotinoid insecticides are not a threat to aquatic insects when used as a seed treatment on canola and in many other instances. Details here.