Japanese researchers have succeeded in fertilising pear trees using pollen carried on the thin film of a soap bubble. They’ve been searching for alternative approaches to pollination, because of the decline in the number of bees worldwide. When fired from a bubble gun, the delicate soapy spheres achieved a success rate of 95%. The researchers are now testing drones that fire bubbles for pollination.
Dr Eijiro Miyako, from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, had previously tested the ability of a drone to deliver pollen – but even though the drone was just two centimetres long, it kept damaging the flowers in the process. “I was playing soap bubbles with my son at a park close to my home, when a soap bubble accidently hit my son’s face,” he told BBC News. “But I got an inspiration because I thought the bubbles won’t damage the flowers and would be an ideal material for pollination.” In the lab, he was able to confirm, via optical microscopy, that soap bubbles could carry pollen. Realising that most conventional soap would be too toxic for flowers, Dr Miyako developed what he terms “chemically functionalised” soap bubbles that could each carry up to 2,000 pollen grains.
After shooting the bubbles onto the trees, young fruits started to form some 16 days later, at a volume equal to the hand pollination. “The rates of both soap-bubble-mediated pollination and hand pollination were approximately 95%, and no significant differences were observed between them,” said Dr Miyako. “In fact, the shape and size of young pear fruits after soap bubble pollination look the same as hand pollination. However our method has more potential advantages in terms of future automation and reduction of pollen grains.” Soap bubbles, though, are not without their troubles. The technique creates a lot of waste and the wind and rain can ruin the efforts to pollinate. Dr Miyako believes these restrictions can be overcome through the use of technology such as localisation and mapping, path planning and motion control. Tests have already been carried out with an autonomous drone carrying a bubble gun.
Source: BBC
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