D3094: Cultivating sweet potatoes as a bee magnet for optimal pollination in intercropping systems

Most of the earth’s agriculture depends on insect pollination. Due to pollinator decline, impacts on human health will be magnified, especially in developing countries because insect pollinated crops provide a critical support of calories and nutrients. Intercropping plants attractive to pollinators with pollinator dependent crops (PDCs) may aid in mitigating food demand. In this experiment, 30 sweet potatoes, attractive to pollinators, will be grown on the NC A&T university farm. Pollinator abundance and diversity will be measured for each crop. The objective is that out of the 30 sweet potato varieties, 4 highly attractive varieties will be selected to be intercropped with PDCs that require pollinators. Pollinator abundance and diversity, nectar volume, nectar sugar concentration, pollen count, chlorophyll content, number of flowers, and plant structure will be measured. The pollen count, nectar volume, and nectar sugar concentration will be assessed to determine if there is any correlation to pollinator abundance and diversity on each variety. Chlorophyll content will be correlated against nectar sugar concentration. It is expected that 4 sweet potato varieties will attract the most of different types of pollinators to be intercropped with the PDCs that need those pollinators. The hypothesis is that sweet potatoes may be intercropped with specific PDCs to increase yield and increase food production. Intercropping will also help decrease pollinator decline by providing food and shelter for important bees.