Vol. 11, Special Issue 7 (2022)

Author(s):
Tiasangla Jamir, HK Singh, Avinash Chauhan, Susanta Banik and SP Kanaujia

Abstract:
A field experiment was conducted to study the impact of stingless bee (Tetragonula iridipennis) pollination on watermelon. The study was conducted in RBD with 3 replications and 7 treatments i.e., T1-caged with stingless bee, T2-Caged with hand pollination, T3-caged with stingless bee +hand pollination, T4-open pollination + hand pollination, T5-open pollination, T6-open pollination+ sugar solution spray (30%), T7-control. The incidence of different pollinators were recorded. The pollination efficiency index was calculated using different foraging and quality parameters. The highest fruit weight (2.38 kg) was recorded in stingless bee plots and the lowest weight was recorded in control plot (0.95 kg). Similarly, higher fruit set (58.55%), healthy fruit (65.58%) and lower deformed fruit (11.89%) were recorded in stingless bee pollinated treatment over control (16.52%).