Scientist uses soap bubbles and robots for pollination
Recommended for Agriculture
Pollination is the process in which pollen is taken from one part of a plant to another so that new plant seeds can be produced. This is how trees and plants bear fruits and vegetables.
Bees play a very important role in pollination. As they go from flower to flower collecting nectar, they spread pollen. However, despite their importance to agriculture, many bees are endangered.
Recently, a Japanese scientist named Eijiro Miyako has come up with an alternative solution for pollination. He is using drones and robots that blow soap bubbles to transport pollen to flowers.
In 2017, Miyako had experimented with a tiny 4-cm-long toy drone to pollinate flowers. However, this drone damaged the flowers.
Later he thought of soap bubbles that his son was playing with.
After selecting a suitable soapy liquid, he blew soap bubbles filled with pollen on flowers of pear plants. These bubbles popped on landing, depositing the pollen. This idea worked.
They expanded the experiment to a pear orchard. In these orchards in Japan, farmers pollinate trees by hand using a feather. The experiment was successful and also used much less pollen compared to hand pollination.
Miyako is now working on making this process faster using a robot, which can move around. He is also experimenting with drones that can fly around with a bubble sprayer.
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