Soap Bubbles Pollinated a Pear Orchard Without Damaging Delicate Flowers
martyb writes:
Soap bubbles pollinated a pear orchard without damaging delicate flowers:
After confirming through optical microscopy that soap bubbles could, in fact, carry pollen grains, Miyako and Xi Yang, his coauthor on the study, tested the effects of five commercially available surfactants on pollen activity and bubble formation. The neutralized surfactant lauramidopropyl betain (A-20AB) won out over its competitors, facilitating better pollen germination and growth of the tube that develops from each pollen grain after it is deposited on a flower. Based on a laboratory analysis of the most effective soap concentrations, the researchers tested the performance of pear pollen grains in a 0.4% A-20AB soap bubble solution with an optimized pH and added calcium and other ions to support germination. After three hours of pollination, the pollen activity mediated through the soap bubbles remained steady, while other methods such as pollination through powder or solution became less effective.
Miyako and Yang then loaded the solution into a bubble gun and released pollen-loaded bubbles into a pear orchard, finding that the technique distributed pollen grains (about 2,000 per bubble) to the flowers they targeted, producing fruit that demonstrated the pollination's success. Finally, the researchers loaded an autonomous, GPS-controlled drone with functionalized soap bubbles, which they used to direct soap bubbles at fake lilies (since flowers were no longer in bloom) from a height of two meters, hitting their targets at a 90% success rate when the machine moved at a velocity of two meters per second.
Journal References:
Xi Yang, Eijiro Miyako. Soap Bubble Pollination, iScience (DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101188)
Svetlana A.Chechetka, Yue Yu, Masayoshi Tange, Eijiro Miyako. Materially Engineered Artificial Pollinators [open], Chem (DOI: 10.1016/j.chempr.2017.01.008)
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