In Europe 4000 types of fruit and vegetables exist thanks to pollinators. 90% of wild flowering species and 75% of major agricultural crops benefit from animal pollination.
By circling from flower to flower, these insects allow the fertilization of the plants from which we obtain the products we find on our tables. The pollinator par excellence is the bee (there are 20 thousand species), but there are also butterflies, nocturnal moths, wasps, beetles, etc. A particular type of pollination is carried out by the bumblebee which makes the flower vibrate with its buzzing, allowing the dispersion of the pollen.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, around 9% of bee and butterfly species are at risk of extinction in Europe. The causes are different, recalls the Mario Negri Institute: intensive agriculture and different land use, use of pesticides and other polluting substances, climate change, invasive and pathogenic alien species.
Pesticides, and insect pest control methods in general, have always posed a dilemma for farmers: on the one hand they serve to protect plants, on the other they create major problems for pollinating insects which are useful and must be protected. Current efforts to reduce the use of chemical pesticides involve synergistic approaches: resistant crop cultivars, natural biological control, monitoring and predatory insects.
Plants also activate defensive strategies against parasites by developing toxic, repellent substances or by placing themselves in symbiosis with predatory insects that feed on those harmful to the plant itself.
Some have activated a system that allows you to eliminate or, at least limit, the damage caused by parasites by producing a viscous oil that traps and neutralizes them. This sticky substance is produced by glandular trichomes, tiny projections of epidermal cells (small hairs), the ends of which are sticky.
A study published in the journal of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) illustrates the research of a group of researchers from Wageningen University (Holland) who experimented with a technique that reproduced the biological mechanism of glandular trichomes obtaining viscous oil, subsequently sprayed on the leaves. The adhesive particles of the oil perform the function of a “pesticide” without being one and were found to be effective even days after spraying. In this way the plants are protected from parasites and there is no need to use pesticides to the benefit of pollinating insects.
In summary, a method has been developed to protect plants without damaging pollinators, using an oil inspired by the world of nature that captures only pest insects and allows bees, bumblebees and wasps to carry out the essential pollination activity.
(Article published in the newspaper LaRagione on 4 June 2024)
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