This Project Grant award, valued at $173,538.00, was provided by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program (CFDA 10.310). The funding supports research conducted by Rutgers, The State University to evaluate how the age of forests adjacent to apple orchards affects pollinator communities and apple yields in the Northeastern United States.
The research aims to provide evidence-based guidelines for managing forests to support crop pollination and production. Key activities include collecting data on wild bee abundance, biodiversity, and visitation rates on apple flowers, as well as measuring apple yields in orchards with forests of varying ages. The findings will help inform forest management practices that can be tailored to conserve pollinators and enhance crop yields for apple and other spring-blooming crops. The project has a performance period from August 2024 to August 2027.
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