Hoverfly use for pollination of commercial soft fruit crops

Pollination of crops is essential for production of seeds, fruits, vegetables, and plant oils, generating billions of dollars annually in agriculture. The UK berry market itself was valued at £1.27 billion and is growing. However, wild pollination of fruit is often inadequate, especially at certain times of year and in covered crop systems. Insufficient pollination results in lower quality, and misshapen fruit, which is a major industry constraint. Unsaleable fruit must still be harvested to prevent proliferation of the invasive pest, Drosophila suzukii, increasing labour and production costs considerably. Consequently, UK growers supplement wild pollinators with commercially reared insects such as bumblebee hives, but even then, some farms experience 12%-17% fruit waste from misshapes.
Olombria are developing a commercial hoverfly pollination system using attractive odour lures under AI control. Aphidophagous hoverflies offer several advantages over bumblebees/honeybees as commercial crop pollinators:
- Lower hazard risk (bee stings)
- Biocontrol of pest species from larvae feeding
- Increased crop yield
Using an interdisciplinary approach, it should be possible to amplify hoverfly efficacy significantly from base levels. We propose integrating aspects of the Olombria AI system, refining the odour cues, and including visual cues. Hoverflies learn that certain flowers offer superior nectar rewards and are thus more attracted towards them and are also attracted to areas of high pest infestation for ovipositioning purposes.
This project would use an interdisciplinary approach to explore the potential to optimise pollinator behaviour to address several knowledge gaps:
1. Interspecific differences in responses to odour lures across candidate commercial hoverfly pollinators - will "one size fit all"? This will enable the student to acquire skills in chemical ecology and electroantennography (EAG).
2. Does a floral odour or pheromone blend attract more hoverflies and result in better pollination? This will enable the student to acquire skills in behavioural entomology, field and polytunnel trials, and fruit quality assessments and assessing impacts on behaviour of managed and wild pollinators.
3. Can floral odour release devices under computer control be used to direct free-flying hoverflies in the lab and field according to experimenter-driven programming? This will enable the student to develop programming and software skills, working with Olombria's existing AI.
4 The effect of multimodal stimuli on hoverflies at different spatial scales, including responses to patterns, and the effect of changing illumination, to optimise attraction into the target crops. This will enable the student to develop skills in visual ecology, including use of spectrophotometry, and use of 3D tracking in wind tunnels.