Weather and landscape influences on pollinator visitation of flowering winter oilseeds (field pennycress and winter camelina) - Frank Forcella, Swetabh Patel, Andrew W. Lenssen, Cody Hoerning, M. Scott Wells, Russ W. Gesch, Marisol T. Berti - J Appl Entom

Flowers of field pennycress (Thlaspi arvsense L.) and winter camelina (Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz.) produce abundant pollen and nectar in early spring and thereby may be valuable for pollinators. Insects observed in field plots of these flowers were monitored for 2 years at three sites in the Upper Midwest region of the USA. Average seasonal observations across years and sites varied from 1.6 to 5.3 total insects/min for field pennycress and 1.4 to 4.5 insects/min for winter camelina. Field pennycress and winter camelina are reliably attractive to beneficial pollinating insects across a wide geographic region, but visitation rates and proportional representation of various insect groups depended on a range of site and weather characteristics.

Read more DOI: 10.1111/jen.12854

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