Pollination Efficiency of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators in Cotton

Experiment was conducted at GKVK, Bangalore to study the pollination efficiency of honey bees and other pollinators in cotton PKVH5. Cotton flowers were visited by fourteen species of insect pollinators on both CMS and R line of cotton; all of them belong to order hymenoptera. The mean relative abundance of honeybees (A. cerana, A. dorsata, A. florea) constituted 65 to 70 % on CMS and 75 to 78 % on R line. Among honeybees, A. florea was most predominant followed by A. cerana. The peak foraging activity of honeybees showed a maximum at 13:00 h on adjacent and central rows of CMS line and at 11:00 h on R line, whereas other pollinators showed bimodal activity at 9:00h and 17:00h on both the lines. In total moves of A. cerana within and between parental lines, 15.25 per cent accounted for A to R and 8.75 per cent for R to A visits. In the open pollination of CMS, the per cent of boll set (82.66 and 80.33), seed yield per plant (82.76 and 74.58 g), number of seeds per boll (20.33 and 17.33), test weight (12.24 and 12.46 g) and seed oil content (16.73 and 15.23 %) were significantly higher in adjacent rows of CMS line than in central ones.