Abstract:
Insects are important as main pollinators of many agricultural crops such as
vegetables and fruits. More than 3000 species of insects are important as
pollinators and among them insects belong to order Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera
are well studied throughout the world. Pollinators belong to order Hymenoptera
especially honeybees and butterflies were recorded as the main pollinators of crop
plants. Present study investigates the pollinators of selected crop plants, Bitter
gourd (Mormodica charranlia), Cucumber (Cucumis satives) and Snake gourd
( Tricosanthes cucumerina) of family Cucurbitacea, Winged beans (Psophocarpus
letragonolobus) of family Fabaceae and Solatium sp. of Family Solanaceae grown
in a dry zone mixed cropping system. Flowering time, flower visiting insects and
their frequencies and durations on randomly selected study plants were recorded
throughout the three months study period. Our study reveals that dwarf honeybee
(Apis florea), Kanawe bee (Trigona irridipennis), Trigona morphospeciesl and
Blue banded bee (Amegilla sp.) were the most frequent visitors of these vegetable
plants, while butterfly species such as The Common Cerulean (Jamides celeno).
The Lemmon Emigrant (Catopsilia pomona) and The Lesser Grass Blue (Zizina
otis) regularly feed on above plants. Since pollination is a passive process, we
speculate that these species might be the most important pollinators of above
plants. Interestingly, although honey bees (Apis cerana) were available in the field
during the study period we did not observe them visiting these vegetable flowers.
Our study revealed that the above pollinators were active during the morning
period. Therefore farmers can be advised to avoid this time period when they apply
pesticides.
