Researchers Are Using ‘Bee Doctors’ To Treat Cherry Tree Disease
The future of fungus-free crops may depend not on fungicides, but on a few fuzzy insects, if a method used by Australian researchers can be successfully replicated.
The researchers are using bees as “flying doctors” to deliver a biological control agent that prevents a debilitating fungus to the blossoms of the cherry trees they pollinate. The agent — which contains spores of another fungus that prevents brown rot, a blight that’s prevalent among cherries and other stone fruit — is sprinkled into dispensers on the front of the bees’ hives. The spores cling to the bees when they leave the hive, and then rub off on the flowers the bees land on to gather nectar and pollen.
“Normally growers spray once or twice during flowering to prevent brown rot in cherries later in the season” Katja Hogendoorn, project leader for the bees-as-fungus-fighters project, said. “Because they are spraying flowers, and bees go to flowers, we can use bees to deliver the control instead.”
The technique works in place of spraying fungicide on the trees to protect them from brown rot, which can cause extensive losses if it infects cherry trees. That makes it a more environmentally sound way of preventing brown rot on cherry trees, which can be pollinated by bumblebees or honeybees.
“The bees deliver control on target, every day,” Hogendoorn, said. “There is no spray drift or run-off into the environment, less use of heavy equipment, water, labor and fuel.”
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http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/09/25/3572311/bees-flying-doctors/
