5-28 IAN Self Pollinating Almonds

 Problem…Solution. Ag people are so smart and inspiring. I’m David Sparks and I’ll tell you why in a minute. Each year hundreds of beekeepers, many from Idaho, pack up their bees and head for California to pollinate crops including almonds. But the problems with Colony Collapse Disorder in bees in recent years have been covered heavily. Here’s Bill Ahaus of the Idaho Honey Industry Association: “What they’re finding is that there are very high levels of these neonicotinoids that are in the bee’s wax. They’re absorbed into the bee’s wax and what happens is that non-toxic chemical builds up in the hive to the point where the concentration is high enough to actually, if not kill them outright, at least weaken their immune systems so they fall pray to viruses.”

 California has more than 600,000 acres of almond orchards. At the beginning of each new year, these almond trees burst into bloom. That’s when growers will need many millions of robust bees to ferry pollen from one cream-white blossom to the next.

But we just heard that due to fatigue, viruses, mites neonicotinoids, etc. there aren’t as many bees and now bees may no longer be needed for almond pollinating.

This possibility could prove true as a result of the work of Agricultural Research Service geneticists who have developed new and improved self-pollinating almond trees.