Pollination of Urban Crops 2019
Chicago Botanic Garden Windy City Sites

Ecology, Economic Botany, Reproductive Biology

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. 

Intern(s)

Fieldwork Conditions

Bees