Pollination experiment set-up

Here's a sneak peak at the set-up for one of my experiments this summer. We will be targeting when the brunt of pollination happens in the pumpkins by closing research flowers every 2 hours between 5 and 11AM in our research plots. If we see that pollen grains (and the resulting seed set) do not increase that much between 9AM and 11AM collections compared to our 7AM collections, then that means most of the pollen is deposited before 7AM. Counting the seeds in mature pumpkins exposed to these same restrictions will tell us if the pollination window corresponds to successful pumpkins. The cameras will be set up to record the number of bees, species and time spent visiting the flowers on the field edge, and in the interior of the field. This will give us a good idea who pollinates and how long it takes them.