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kiwifruit artificial pollination

A man in a yellow t-shirt, a dark blue hat, and sunglasses stands below the horizontal branches of a kiwifruit plant in an orchard. He holds a hand puffer device: a long pole with one end held upward close to a plant flower, where a small white canister is attached to the pole. At the other end of the pole, held downward, the man holds a small black bladder attached a tube that runs through the pole.

While a study investigating kiwifruit pollination methods found fruit developed on barely 3 percent of bee-pollinated flowers, artificial pollination using a hand-puffer device—as demonstrated here by Auburn University entomologist Anthony Abbate, Ph.D.—resulted in fruit developing on 97 percent of flowers. (Photo courtesy of Anthony Abbate, Ph.D.)

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