RESERCH WORK ON POLLEN WILL ASSIST FARMERS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 13, 18 July 1949, Page 3

RESERCH WORK ON POLLEN WILL ASSIST FARMERS

Research work on pollen from New Zealand plants has become an integral part of science, and is thus linked closely with the economic life, particularly with medicine and agriculture. Investigations into soilforming processes are also helped by the botanists’ study of deposits of pollens of earlier eras. The research on the pollens of plants by scientists of the Pollen Section of the Botany Division, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, help to solve many problems in various fields of investigation. Necessary To Farmers

the farmer the resources of this section have wide application. Pollen is necessary, for the setting of fruits and seeds, and it has an important role in modern plant breeding. An adequate supply of pollen (or pollen substitutes) is necessary throughout the season for the maintenance of bee colonies. It supplies bees with the protein foods in which nectar is lacking. For the dairy stock farmer, pollen studies may help to distinguish the kinds of peat on which deficiency diseases of animals are likely to occur when swamp lands are reclaimed. For medical research the Pollen Section has for some years collected valuable data on wind-pollinat-ed plants for the investigations on hay fever. Pollen for clinical tests is supplied, information is available on what pollens are in the air and at what time of the year, and surveys are made of the distribution and abundance of plants known to cause hay fever or suspected as capable of causing it Recently a hospital laboratory, investigating a case of allergy to cows, sent in a clipping of cow’s hair from which a number of pollen grains were isolated and classified.

Studies of deposits of pollen throughout the ages furnish important clues to the geological history of New Zealand and the changes wrought by the severer climates of the glacial period; how forests and soils reached the condition in which the early colonists found them is a subject of more than academic interest. This knowledge, when studied with the present-day relationship of plants to their surroundings, helps the scientist with such problems as conservation of soil, as well as with basic problems of land use.

Survey of Peat Areas As part of a survey of New Zealand peat areas, samples from the Pyramid Valley swamp, recently excavated for moa bones, are being studied: they promise to throw new light on the climate history of Canterbury and the extent of former forests.

Samples and inquiries from various parts of the Dominion give an indication of other work now being carried out by this Section. Honey, bee loads, and bees taken with pollen on them are received, and information is sought concerning bush and pasture as alternative sources of nectar and pollen, unusual honey types, and on the reason for the death of bees. ' In some recent bee-directional experiments, which are aimed at securing increased seed yield in red clover, the help of the Pollen Section was sought.