00:00Here's a bunch of insects pollinating blackberry bushes.
00:15They look like bees, but they're not bees.
00:21They're flies, and as pollinators, they work.
00:31In late June 2022, the deadly bee parasite Varroa mite was discovered for the first time
00:37in Australia.
00:38A month later, it was detected in the Nunner Glen region, which is 25km from Coffs Harbour.
00:45It's a renowned berry growing area.
00:47Farmers need to make sure they have pollinators.
00:53Brad Hocking is the lead horticulturalist at the Costa Berry Farm.
00:59Since Varroa mite, we're certainly working a bit closer with our beekeepers to make sure
01:05that they're supported in managing their bees and able to get good access and movement of
01:10their hives around the area.
01:12It's yet to have a major impact, but we do expect that it will present greater challenges
01:17for them in the management of their hive health.
01:20It's one of a few sites in the Coffs Harbour area which is taking part in a pollination
01:24trial using flies.
01:27Initially, we started looking at that in rubeus crops, and we're certainly happy to be progressing
01:33that now and looking at some really interesting alternative and future pollinators for our
01:40crops.
01:42Professor Amina Rader has been studying pollinators for 11 years.
01:46She's heading up research on managed fly pollinators.
01:50Funded by Hort Innovation, it's been running over the last four years.
01:54At this point, the first stage of the project is just to understand how efficient the flies
01:58are.
01:59And the way that we do that is by tagging flowers and putting bags on them while they're
02:02still in bud so that there's no pollen on them.
02:05And then we open the flowers, wait for the flies to visit once, twice, three times, five
02:09times, re-bag the flowers, and then wait for the fruit to develop, and then weigh the
02:13fruit and compare that against the open pollinator, which is what the honeybee is pollinating.
02:18Rayleigh just came out of the tunnel and handed me a blueberry.
02:23So the question is, how do I feel about eating a fly-pollinated blueberry?
02:29Pretty good, as it turns out.
02:30It's delicious.
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