This project asks
whether crops in urban community gardens are receiving sufficient pollination
services to maximize crop yields. We will study Sun gold cherry tomato plants
at approximately 4 Windy City Harvest garden locations (10 plants per
garden). Half the plants will be unmanipulated controls and the other
half will be pollinated by a human on top of whatever they naturally receive.
Tomatoes are pollinated by native bumble bees that buzz at a specific frequency
to release the pollen (other bees cannot pollinate tomatoes). This experiment
will tell us if tomato production is limited by pollination. If yields
are pollen limited, then it would make sense to pursue some native bee
management to encourage more bumble bees to nest nearby, for example. The
project mainly consists of visiting each garden throughout the week and
applying the pollination treatments, in addition to observing the flowers to
see what bees are visiting them and how many visits the flowers are
receiving.