Organic farms
produce strawberries with fewer malformations and a higher proportion of fully
pollinated berries relative to conventional forms, according to new study.
The
study,published in the journal PLoS ONE was led by Georg Andersson of
Lund University in Sweden.
Andersson and
colleagues investigated the effect of organic farming compared to conventional.
What they found was that the pollination success increased greatly with organic
farming. The researchers speculate that this effect may be due to an increase
in insect pollinator abundance and/or diversity that comes with organic
farming.
They also
determined that this effect was apparent within two to four years of the
conversion, suggesting that there is not a significant lag time before
pollination benefits are seen after adopting organic farming practices.
The study is
based on studies of strawberry plants on twelve farms in the county of Skåne,
Sweden. On the farms with ‘KRAV’ organic certification, where neither
pesticides nor non-organic fertiliser are used, 45% of the strawberry flowers
were fully pollinated. On the conventional farms, the corresponding figure was
17%.
The results, say
Dr Andersson, “suggest that organic farming could enhance the pollination
service in agricultural landscapes, which is important for developing a
sustainable agriculture. The method made it possible to measure the pollination
independent of landscape composition, soil-type and other factors that can
affect pollination success”.
Courtesy nyrnaturalnews
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