Question
Asked 5th Oct, 2016

How does honey bee foraging is advantageous to mustard plant?

Mustard is a self-pollinating crop and it also provides nectar and pollen resources to pollinators like the honey bee but in return what do bee gave to mustard ?

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All Answers (6)

Richard Odemer
Julius Kühn-Institut
Mustard probably benefits to the presence of pollinators (particularily honey bees) in a similar way than oilseed rape:
"The honeybee, Eristalis hoverflies and bumblebees (especially Bombus sensu stricto and B. lapidarius) were the best pollinators of winter oilseed rape based on the number of pollen grains they carry, visitation rates per flower and their relative abundance per field. Exclusion of pollinators resulted in a 27 % decrease in the number of seeds produced, and a 30 % decrease in seed weight per pod in winter crops, with comparable values from a spring oilseed rape field also."
See the link below:
1 Recommendation
Syed Abbas Jafar
National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research Goa India.
2 Recommendations
Gad Ish-Am
North R&D, Israel
Even though the cultivated mustard is self pollinated, its spontaneous pollination (without pollinator help) is not efficient. The bee visiting the mustard flower enhances both self- and cross-pollination.
1 Recommendation
Syed Abbas Jafar
National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research Goa India.
Kindly also have a look at this link wherein (Chapter 9) the importance of Bees are stressed for self-pollinating crop of Mustard:
Best
Syed
2 Recommendations

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Best,
cd

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