• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.294-298
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• 2012

In sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) growing there are several severe problem which have to be overcome to produce highly graded fruits because of fruit rots and fruit crackings, if there is frequent precipitation during immature fruit step and picking season. In order to reduce fungicide sprayings and produce qualified fruits in areas with rainy season like as South Korea, rain-sheltered growing is necessary absolutely. Sweet cherry blooms early to medium April in southern area of South Korea. If we depend on honeybees (Apis mellifera) distributed in natural ecosystem, it is not easy to get normal fruit-set every season because of low temperature around blooming time. And also bee keepers seldom sell honeybee hives as a pollinator during spring, instead they keep honeybee hives to get honey. Recently use of B. terrestris as a pollinator of cherry tomato, oriental pumpkin etc. grown in protected cultivation system increase abundantly. Therefore, in this study we studied B. terrestris as an alternate of honeybee to pollinate sweet cherry grown in rain shelter. In part of foraging activity B. terrestris shows staying on a cherry flower for about six second and visiting frequency of 11 flowers per minute. However A. mellifera stayed about 15 second on a flower and visited 4~5 flowers per minute. There were no significant difference in fruit-setting rate and fruit characteristics after using B. terrestris and A. mellifera as pollinators of sweet cherry. Consequently there is no negative effect when we use B. terrestris as an alternate pollinator of A. mellifera in sweet cherry cultivation under rain shelter.