Vol. 10, Issue 9 (2021)

Author(s):
Gothi HR, Patel PS, Tejani DN, Barad CS and Rabari PH

Abstract:
Pollination, an essential ecosystem service provided by insect pollinators, is many times taken for granted and little attention is paid to the need for conserving and enhancing the pollinator diversity in crop ecosystem. Hence, research on “Studies on pollinators of muskmelon (Cucumis melo Linnaeus)” was carried out at C. P. College of Agriculture, S. D. Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar during summer 2021. Among the different insect pollinators, M. domestica spent maximum time (28.0 sec./flowers) followed by A. dorsata (12.0 sec./flowers) and B. mesenitina (9.50 sec./flowers). M. domestica visited less (1 flower visited/minute) number of flowers per minute. The number of flowers visited by the pollinator in particular time and revealed A. walkeri, D. plumipes and Cuckoo sp. visited the highest number of flowers (5.00 flowers visited/min.).