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Agronomy
Special Issues
Airborne Pollen
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Airborne Pollen

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Precision and Digital Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2021) | Viewed by 2207

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Åslög Dahl

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Biology and Environment, Goteborgs Universitet, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden
Interests: pollen; allergy; health impacts of bioaerosols; plant reproductive ecology; phenology; pollination biology; airborne bioaerosol detection and monitoring
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

I hereby invite you to contribute to this Special Issue “Airborne Pollen” of the MDPI journal Agronomy.

During flowering in seed plants, male reproductive cells are transferred within pollen grains from the stamens to the female reproductive structure of the plant. Generally, insects or other flying animals take care of this transport, but pollination by wind is also common, especially at high latitudes. Several species of ecological and/or economic importance, such as spruce, pine, birch, and numerous grasses, have adapted to this pollination mode. These adaptions are not only of little attractiveness to animals but include a number of characteristics that alleviate pollen release into the atmosphere and, also, the capture of pollen, which has opposite requirements on reproductive structures. Certain meteorological conditions favor pollen dispersal, which can take place on different scales: from a few centimeters to several hundred kilometers. During transport with air currents, much pollen inevitably “falls on rocky ground”. Selection, therefore, often favors the production of large amounts of pollen, and their concentration may reach several thousand grains per cubic meter. However, the concentration is usually spatially heterogenous, and so too is gene flow over, e.g., a field or in a forest.

The amount of pollen produced, however, varies between species, varieties, and also with environmental factors. To understand effects of the latter makes it possible to predict flowering intensity and yield according to conditions during flower development and pollination. Knowledge about the potential distances of pollen transport can affect our assumptions about the risk for genetic contamination or dispersal of chemicals used in agriculture that may damage insects and other arthropods. We can model the deposition of pollen at various distances from a certain source. Likewise, the timing of flowering and pollen release is governed by temperature, precipitation, and photoperiod, and could be predicted. Airborne pollen data have been used to determine the optimal harvest date in grapes.

You are welcome to submit research and review studies on these and other topics related to airborne pollen to this Special Issue.

Dr. Åslög Dahl
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • airborne pollen
  • aerobiology
  • anemophily
  • atmospheric transport
  • gene flow
  • phenology
  • crop yield variation
  • yield forecast
  • harvest date forecast
  • genetic contamination

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

13 pages, 29737 KiB  
Article
The Airflow Field Characteristics of the Unmanned Agricultural Aerial System on Oilseed Rape (Brassica napus) Canopy for Supplementary Pollination
by Songchao Zhang, Chen Cai, Jiqiang Li, Tao Sun, Xiaoming Liu, Yong Tian and Xinyu Xue
Agronomy 2021, 11(10), 2035; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11102035 - 11 Oct 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1788
Abstract
Pollination success is essential for hybrid oilseed rape (OSR, Brassica napus) seed production, but traditional pollination methods are not efficient. The unmanned agricultural aerial system (UAAS) has developed rapidly and has been widely used in China. When flying, the wind field generated [...] Read more.
Pollination success is essential for hybrid oilseed rape (OSR, Brassica napus) seed production, but traditional pollination methods are not efficient. The unmanned agricultural aerial system (UAAS) has developed rapidly and has been widely used in China. When flying, the wind field generated by the rotors overcomes the UAAS gravity, and it blows and disturbs the crops below, which helps the pollen spread. In order to investigate the distribution law of the three-dimensional (direction x, y, z) airflow field, experiments involving three levels of flight speed (FS) at 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0 m/s, and three levels of flight height (FH) at 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 m were conducted in the OSR field by using an electric four-rotor UAAS P20. The effects of FS and FH on airflow velocities (vx, vy, vz) were analyzed. High-speed dynamic camera (HSDC) technology was used to capture the swings of OSR plants under airflow field disturbance. OSR pollen samples were collected during the experiments. The results showed that the airflow field in the direction x was mainly concentrated on the center of the flight path (S3), and the maximum wind velocity of direction x was 8.01 m/s (T1, S3). The direction x airflow field width was distributed almost symmetrically, but the center position shifted easily, due to crosswind. The airflow field in the direction y was distributed on both sides of the center flight path, and the velocity was generally larger, with the maximum at 7.91 m/s (T1, S2). The airflow field in the direction z was distributed irregularly, and the velocity was small. The FH had highly significant impacts on  vx (p < 0.01), and the interaction of FS and FH had significant impacts on  vx (0.01 < p < 0.05), while the FS had no significant impact on vx (p = 0.70804 > 0.05). The FS, FH, and interaction of FS and FH all had highly significant impacts on vy (p < 0.01). The swings of the OSR plant captured by the HSDC proved that the UAAS airflow field could effectively blow the OSR plant. The swing amplitude changes showed a positive correlation with airflow velocities (vx) in general. Although the observed OSR plant swung forward and backward repeatedly, there was a law of first forward, and then backward, and forward again at the beginning of each swing. The pollen collected on the sampler verified that the UAAS airflow field could help with pollen spread. The research results provide technical support for UAAS application on supplementary pollination for hybrid OSR seed production. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Airborne Pollen)
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