Artificial Pollination Technology Adopted By Israeli Ag Startup: How It Works?

Pollination is the exchange of pollen grains from the anthers of one flower to the stigma of the same or another flower. It is a fundamental cycle for the fertilization of the flowers and the development of seeds furthermore, fruits. The huge dependency of food crops on pollination to reproduce makes it an essential approach in agriculture production. But due to various environmental factors and pesticide usage, the population of natural pollinators like bees, flies, butterflies, etc., is decreasing rapidly. Thus, to guarantee adequate pollination in crops, artificial pollination is done.

What is Artificial Pollination?

The biological or mechanical application of additional compatible pollen grains that have been previously collected is known as artificial pollination. This approach lessens the uncertainty arising from natural pollination, avoiding the requirement to plant pollinizer cultivars.

However, artificial pollination is undoubtedly not a new procedure. Date palm, a dioecious, anemophilous species whose regular fertilization isn't very effective, has been developed for quite a long time utilizing one of the most straightforward artificial pollination strategies; it comprises setting recently collected staminate inflorescences among the inflorescences of pistillate palms or applying pollen by hand. In this way, the quantity of useless staminate palms can be decreased to a minimum quantity in the farms.

This approach came into the news again when an Israeli ag startup introduced it. The Israeli ag startup Edete Precision Technologies for Agriculture is carrying out its artificial pollination technology in Australia's almond markets in the coming months of the year.

The innovation is set to go through colossal scope business testing in the territory of Victoria across almond plantations claimed by one of the country's biggest almond makers, which was anonymous in the public statement. Artificial pollination would supplant the regular pollination of honey bees, which is the main thrust of plant and crop growing.

This assisted, controlled, or topical mass pollination expands the quality and quantity of fruit production in various crops under conditions in which regular fertilization is restricted. The ag company said their tests in Israel showed fundamentally expanded yields utilizing artificial pollination and mechanical pollen reaping. Edete additionally, sooner or later plans to move their tech to California, the US's most extensive area of almond producers. The tech can also fertilize pistachios, apples, cherries, pears, plums and different other crops.

The company officials said they are seriously looking for an answer for the decrease in natural pollination that threatens farmers' capacity to meet the food demand. Despite spending a large amount of money on colonies of bees to jumpstart pollination, farmers are discovering more difficulties to remain productive. Thus, this artificial pollination will prove highly beneficial as the whole system can work 24 hours per day at any temperature. It gathers the blossoms, removes pollen from the anthers of the bloom (which produce pollen), permitting storage of pure pollen for as long as a year. An automated framework then pollinates the trees using the assembled pollen. 

According to Mr. Basem Barry, CEO & founder of Geohoney, artificial pollination is thus a procedure progressively utilized in crop production. It will help reduce the vulnerability related to regular fertilization furthermore, with the fundamental aim to decrease the space apportioned to more miniature profitable pollinizer trees. Execution of artificial pollination in a given yield will require economical and powerful techniques for gathering pollen grains, storage and application. Fresh approaches and the latest devices will improve the success rate of artificial pollination.