ASHS 2025 Conference

Pollination is a prerequisite for optimizing both yield and fruit quality within commercial highbush blueberry (Vaccinium spp.) production systems. Although many insects can pollinate blueberry flowers, the honey bee (Apis mellifera) provides most of the pollination services within commercial settings due to the large number of foraging individuals within a single colony. Despite this, insufficient pollination frequently limits growers from achieving their full yield potential, and research-based recommendations to inform pollination strategies are lacking. The objective of this presentation is to summarize how the cross-disciplinary and multi-institutional Blueberry Pollination Project has addressed some of these barriers by investigating best practices to achieve optimal honey bee-mediated pollination and formulate decision-aid tools. Key findings that will be highlighted include the role of cross-pollination for optimizing yields in northern and southern highbush blueberry cultivars, the effects of hive placement on flower visitation and overall crop pollination, effects of changing stocking density and colony placement on farm income, and how landscape density and colony population size are more influential in determining flower visitation and pollination outcomes than traditional stocking density recommendations. Decision-aid tools that predict bloom phenology for the timely arrival and departure of honey bee colonies will also be introduced alongside other project resources available on our website (https://blueberrypollination.org/).