Exploring relationships between pollinators and canola on the Palouse

View the project final report

Commodities

• Agronomic: canola

Practices

• Crop Production: pollination, pollinator habitat, pollinator health, varieties and cultivars
• Education and Training: demonstration, extension, mentoring, on-farm/ranch research, workshop
• Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity, habitat enhancement

Canola is expanding rapidly within the Palouse region of eastern Washington and northern Idaho, with acreage in Washington State alone growing from 15K to 135K acres from 2012 to 2022. Canola is being adopted by growers because of its potential to diversify dryland cereal-legume rotations and due to its ability to be sold as a food, biodiesel, and feed crop. Canola crops also provide a large and persistent source of pollen and nectar, and canola flowers are visited by honeybees and diverse native species including bumblebees, mason bees, and sweat bees. While many canola fields in the Palouse region are surrounded primarily by dryland agriculture, others are near sizeable tracts of remnant prairie and other insect-friendly habitat. Our preliminary data suggested that canola yields appear to increase at sites close to natural habitat, possibly due to increased bee abundance in these areas. This project was designed to further test the hypothesis that increasing natural habitat surrounding canola fields promotes increased bee abundance and seed yields. Secondly, our project explored how variation in canola plant traits affected attractiveness to bees and plant yields. Third, we assessed how abiotic and biotic stressors affected canola traits important for bee pollinators. Our research objectives were linked with active extension efforts to determine how growers might be able to modify their management practices to promote high pollinator activity on their fields while maintaining adequate insect pest management. Overall, our project promoted a better understanding of the role of pollinators in canola crop production, and baseline data to further improve canola production and bee health. Our project met several goals of Western SARE: (1) promote good stewardship of natural resources (by providing information on how growers can promote pollinator diversity and quality canola); (2) promote crop, livestock, and enterprise diversification (by aiding aided growers increase their enterprise diversity and pollinator diversity through canola production); and (3) examine the environmental implications of adopting sustainable agriculture practices and systems (by exploring how farming practices affected pollinators and canola crops).

(1) Explore relationships between landscape structure, bees, and canola yields

(2) Determine how farm management practices affect canola traits and pollinator attraction

(3) Assess how abiotic and biotic stress affect canola traits and pollinator attraction

(4) Educate growers on pollinator management in canola