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> Hand pollination is possible, of course You must be kidding. I can't think of many things that would less possible to do by hand. We have 10 acres which is
by abraae 9y ago
> Hand pollination is possible, of course
You must be kidding. I can't think of many things that would less possible to do by hand.
We have 10 acres which is mostly in manuka (i.e. manuka honey), spaced a metre apart from each other. When I stand next to any one of those trees and watch the bees flitting hither and thither doing their thing, I am just amazed by nature.
- quicklyfrozen 9y agoIt's been done by hand in China. Not sure if we can replicate that in the west though.
- bogshaker 9y agoThey were actually better at it than the bees from memory. Wage costs I'm sure would be an issue. Sounds like a crazy idea, but can't we just stop using pesticides that have provably been shown to harm a critical part of our food chain? I don't particularly care if Bayer loses profit, or if I have to pay a more realistic price for fruit and veg.
- hvidgaard 9y ago> can't we just stop using pesticides that have provably been shown to harm a critical part of our food chain? We could, but there is money lost in the process. Both for the people who produce, but also consumers. This needs regulation to become a reality.
- ddebernardy 9y agoYou never know, someone might come up with a mini-drone to do it at some point in the future...
- tangue 9y agoVanilla is hand pollinated in the Indian Ocean Islands (and I suspect that it's the case everywhere in the world outside of Mexico).
- kaeluka 9y agoGreat, how many tons of vanilla do we consume every year?
- tangue 9y agoEnough for proving than human pollination, though not optimal, is possible.
- dEnigma 9y agoIn one small edge case. I doubt it would be as easy to pollinate everything by hand.
- mikeash 9y agoGotta love HN comments. "We could hand pollinate, but that would really suck." "OMG how could you say that, hand pollination would be awful!"
- logfromblammo 9y ago"Would really suck" is a bit of an understatement. But on the upside, >= 80% labor participation rate!
- dEnigma 9y agoYou're right, I shouldn't have made that understatement. What I actually meant was "impossible" instead of "not that easy".
- crimsonalucard 9y agoIt's not even an edge case. Almost all of the worlds' vanilla flavor is synthesized artificially. The best example of hand pollination is China where the entire bee population is basically decimated. Almost all of Chinas' farms ALREADY use hand pollination.