jix
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2014
- Messages
- 610
- Location
- Fredericton, New Brunswick. CANADA
- Tractor
- 2015 Kioti CK2510HST/CAB?loader/bush hog,front blower
Help... the mosquitos are trying to steal my kobota... Should I get a bigger tractor?
Dave 1949..I dunno either Dave, but that is what says in a scientific citation from Google published by a blue berry boffin for the Blueberrie industryMosquitoes pollinate flowers!
Aedes communis: The Pollinating Mosquito
I'm still thinking about the 14 grains of pollen needed to pollinate blueberries. I think bees cannot count past three, so how do they get 14? :laughing: Couldn't multiple black flies visit the same blueberry blossom and eventually get to 14? I dunno about that bit of research.
Dave 1949..I dunno either Dave, but that is what says in a scientific citation from Google published by a blue berry boffin for the Blueberrie industry
NB is one of the largest producers of Canadian Blueberries and God knows we have a lotta mosquitos, but no snow lake mosquitos (not high enough in elevation in most parts). I think that the citation must be accurate, else why would blueberry farmers rent a lot of bee hives and bumble bee hives to put in their fields every summer?? I don't say that bluebewrries are never pollinated by blackflies, however, just that the blackfly is not a major pollinator Blue berries are a rhizome and do not need to be pollinated to spread their roots and start new clone plants, but must be pollinated by insects to produce good big sweet berries. Otherwise, they produce small berries with little juice which have very little commercial value and no seeds which will grow, since they are genetic clones of the bush that produces them if there is no cross pollination. Also, for this reason, cuitivated blueberry fields are located close to other blueberry fields from another rhizome ancestor, usually a large format blueberry field which produces very large blueberries. In my general area there are thousand acre blueberry fields, but you cannot get into them without breaking a fence.
My wife buys fresh berries in season and about 40 lbs of frozen berries for the winter. Frozen berries are about 15 bucks a ten pound box. we eat them on our cheerios every day. In Summer, I get the jumbo berries and eat them with heavy cream for a desert after dinner. Yummy!
What fun would living be without a bit mischief? :laughing:
I didn't think those articles were intended to be scary, just informative. What is more basic than knowing what you are eating? The interesting take away is you can avoid or limit your exposure through careful choices and actions. For blueberries, domestic versus imported, and conventional versus organic growing, makes a huge difference in typical pesticide residue levels.
Do you think the exposure to carcinogens, hormone disruptors, or neurotoxins for examples, is additive? A little here, a little there adds up I think. The health safety tests for various discrete chemical compounds don't address that additive result in the human body and certainly not over a long period of years, or differentiated for older less healthy immune systems. I ain't scared, but I think we know less than we think we do about some of this stuff.