Role of Electrostatics in Artificial Pollination and Future Agriculture

Pollination is the process of pollen detachment from the male part, i.e. anther of a flower, travel through a medium and deposition onto the female part, i.e. pistil of flower, thereby enabling fertilization and reproduction. Majority (87.5%) of flowering plants rely on animal pollination, on insects in particular, with the remnants of species being wind-pollinated and with autonomous seed-producing capabilities. The reproductive phase of a plant has direct impact on crop yield and quality of produce in terms of biomorphological characters which affect its market value. On a global account, 80% of all plant species depend on pollination for reproduction, which influences 35% of crop production and worth US$ 117 billion per year. However, drastic decline in native pollinators has raised major concerns for the assurance of pollination services. Studies have revealed that the absence of pollinators may reduce the global agricultural crop production by 3–8%. Also, keeping in mind the world scenario of crop production and population expansion in relation to land under cultivation which remains the same; rather it shows a decreasing trend. Crop productivity has to be optimized from all possible points of view to meet the future food demand. Here the concept of precision agriculture arises, i.e. optimum utilization of available resources to achieve maximum possible yield from the same land area and desirable quality, without jeopardizing the environment. If the pollination process is disturbed due to climatic factors or insufficient pollinators during the period of bloom, it may directly result in lower yield, undesirable biomorphological changes and quality loss, leading to mass economic drop. To overcome this situation, artificial pollination techniques have been developed.