As we approach the winter season, this can be a helpful time to dive into literature to support your efforts to build various aspects of your farm management program, including supporting pollinators on your farm.
Pollinators provide a number of benefits to fruit and vegetable growers. They are essential for helping with cross pollination for many fruit crops like apples. For early blooming crops like honeyberries, supporting the right pollinators with other early-blooming plants, can ensure good fruit set for the season.
Supporting pollinators can be done by bringing managed pollinators to their site. This is most commonly done with honey bee colonies. But growers can also support pollinator populations by building, maintaining, and protecting pollinator habitat and resources. The other key step is to protect pollinators themselves by checking in with pest management programs on the farm. This can include following Integrated Pest Management (IPM) best management practices by being careful about what, how, and when various pesticides are applied.
For those who are looking to dive into this topic deeper, the University of Minnesota, in collaboration with Pollinator Partnership, has released a new technical guide, "Supporting pollinators in agricultural landscapes: a technical guide for specialty crop growers in the U.S. Midwest."
This guide has been designed for commercial growers who work with specialty crops (vegetables, fruits, cut flowers, and nuts) to learn about pollinator management and get started on projects like planting pollinator habitats.
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