INVESTIGATIONS ON MAJOR POLLINATOR PROFILE OF CHIA (Salvia hispanica L.)
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Date
2022-02-28
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Abstract
Scientific field investigation aimed to document the insect visitors of Chia (Salvia
hispanica L.) flowers was carried out at three different locations viz., crop raised in the
experimental plots at ICAR, NBAIR-Attur campus-Bengaluru, Organic farming unit-UASGKVK- Bengaluru and also at the farmer field, Nijayappanadoddi, Ramanagara District during 2021. A total of 107 insect visitors were collected and recorded on chia during flowering season at three different selected locations. The collected insect visitors belonged to 41 different insect species, 24 insect genera, nine insect families and three insect orders. The Hymenopterans were dominant (82%) followed by the Dipterans (14%) and lepidopterans (4%). Among, 41 different insect species, the honeybees, Apis dorsata, Apiscerana and Apis florea were dominant visitors in all the locations. The mitochondrial DNA from the legs of the floral visitors was used for the amplification of the CO-I gene at 530C to identify the specimens using molecular taxonomy. Total 5 species confirmed their identity in the molecular taxonomy. The activity of floral visitors, started from 06:00 hours and ended at 18:00 hours. The peak activity of floral visitors was maximum between 13:00 to 15:00 hours with maximum Shannon-Weiner diversity index of 1.754. Among honeybees, Apis dorsata was the dominant visitor of chia flowers with an 0.986 Berger-Parker dominance index. The alighting patterns were very clear in Apis dorsata with the mirror images of ‘C’ and ‘7’ shapes on flowers compared to Apis cerana with mirror images of ‘C’ shapes. But for Apis florea it was not clear.
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