Abstract
With the aim of establishing the number of individuals of Xylocopa spp. required for an adequate pollination in Yellow passion fruit, the efficiency of the process was evaluated in a plantation at Ingenio Riopa-ila (25,5 ha), located at Zarzal (Valle) in the Tropical dry forest. Three representative areas were evaluated, each of them with 48 sq.m. Sampling the number of flowers per plant, observations were made by the "Method of the Specific Time" during 15 days, measuring over the observed individuals activities such as: searching, visit to pollinable and non-pollinable structures, and mean feeding time over pollinable flowers. The pollinable flowers were tagged in order to measure their fructification. Under conditions of 18 flowers/plant/day, on the average, it was found that each Xylocopa uses 22,9% of its time (12 hours of activity) visiting and feeding on pollinable flowers, which represents 2,75 hours/day in this activity. The feeding time was 5,4 seconds per flower. An individual can visit 1.833 po-Ilinable flowers per day. The observations of fruit set over the visited flowers gave 45% of formed fruits.
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