The University of Reading is collaborating with top-fruit supplier Norman Collett as part of the £10 million Insect Pollinator Initiative (IPI).
The collaboration will assess whether current pollinator declines are affecting UK apple production, and also investigate how to safeguard pollination services in the forthcoming decades.
It is part of the wider IPI, a five-year programme involving some of the UK’s leading researchers, who are addressing the issues of pollinator declines across the UK and the impacts these will have on food production, biodiversity and the economy.
Evidence shows that many wild pollinators are in widespread decline and the number of managed honey bee colonies in the UK has fallen by as much as 54 per cent in the last two decades.
No comments yet