Percentage abundance of castor pollinators under Haryana condition

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at farm area of CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Under Haryana condition in order to find out the % abundance of different insect pollinators of castor crop for two consecutive years of study. Based on the per cent diurnal abundance result of insect pollinators on flowers of R. communis cv. GCH-7 and DCH-177, hymenopterans were dominated as flower visitors of R. communis accounting more than 95 % of the total pollinators. Among them, four social bee species viz., A. florea (49.22%), A. cerana (18.29%), A. mellifera (10.64%) and A. dorsata (6.73%) were considered to be principal pollinator species of castor while Eristalinus sp. (1.49%) was having least abundance per cent in GCH-7 hybrid. Similarily in DCH-177, A. florea (49.51%), A. cerana (19.32%), A. mellifera (11.49%) and A. dorsata (5.98%) were also considered to be principal pollinator species of castor while Eristalinus sp. (0.79%) was having least abundance per cent.