Last year this subject came up and I was wondering if anyone has access to this type of photography to do some experiments. What our human eyes see as “Diamond Dust” just might be locator beacons for some of the pollinator insects that rely more on broader spectrums of lighting than what we do. There is some incredible research showing that some flowers have evolved to lay out landing strips on the flower petals to guide various species of insects to the pollen and or nectar in various flowers and they often do this with points, dashes and or lines pointing insects in the right direction, which for both the insect and the flower, is the pollen, stigma and nectar. Link below is to Warbler possibly as it appears under infrared lighting.
Yesterday I was playing with one of those infrared reading thermometers. Daffodil blooms follow the sun during these colder spring days. They attempt to keep the trumpet pointed at the sun or towards the sun. Petals on modern day trumpets are cupped and shaped so that when the trumpet is facing the sun, these petals act as solar collectors/reflectors, bouncing the suns rays back onto the trumpet and or at least away from the flower petal itself. Anyway the trumpet itself will act as a wind break allowing smaller insects a spot out of the wind as they would gather pollen for themselves and hopefully for the daffodil bloom, some of this pollen will end up getting transferred to the Stigma, ultimately producing some viable seeds.
It was interesting that with my cheap infrared temperature reader that I was getting temperature readings that were 15*F warmer inside the trumpet and or possibly around the cup and base than surrounding leaf temperatures. Not really scientific but this would be a fun science experiment to share with children. The flower tissue is far thinner than leaf tissue, leaves were dark green as compared to the light yellow of the flower I “shot” a reading on. So you would have thought in a moderate windy, chilly day, late in the afternoon that a lighter colored thinner flower would have been cooler than the darker leaves and or closer to air temperature. I am sure that some of you all have access to some really sensitive infrared temperature readers as compared to my $30.00 one. IF you have one that has pinpoint accuracy, or small spot accuracy then it would be interesting to do some controlled experiments to see just how much warmer the nectar is and or how much warmer it is inside the trumpets than outside air. Below is a similar model to what I was using. You can calibrate these by shooting a “scientific” higher $ thermometer to compare the temperatures of what it is reading to what the infrared unit you buy is reading.
Insects are smart! On cold days my colonies of honey bees gather “hot water” that is condensing from deeper down inside my large tree mulch piles. These are constantly producing “steam” which condenses on top of the piles. They tank up on water that is around 100*F or about 50*F warmer than air temperatures. This will warm up their bodies and make it easier for them to fly during these really cold days.
I taught a MG class last night and to show how water moves up through the stems of plants and or the trunks of trees, I split three daffodil stems into thirds. Each third of the stem was placed in a different test tube with two tiny drops of food coloring. Tubes were, one red, one blue and one green coloring. You need to use white blooms as the green and blue end up looking similar but in just 7 hours everyone could look at these blooms and see the three distinct zonal coloring, where approximately 1/3 of each bloom was a different color. I used these to show that the same thing happens to large trees when they build a driveway over a third or half of the tree roots on one side of the tree and or your neighbor dumps out “Weed and Feed” broad leafed weed killer over their lawn but over the tree roots from YOUR tree that go under the fence and how this would affect just that third and or that half of that tree. You can also see that a “Twisted Stem” on a daffodil will translocate the color around the stem and end up on the opposite side of the bloom from where you would have expected it to end up.
Ditto for fertilizer or nutrients that are available for thicker clumps or solid blocks of daffodils. IF your daffodil roots have to compete with the roots of other nearby daffodils then they are NOT going to be able to grow as well as thinly planted, well divided and well spaced daffodils as compared to thickly planted bulbs. Sun is the HUGE factor though as each leaf actually needs to be able to twist and turn during the day and use it’s solar cells to convert sunshine into energy for the plant. Time lapse photography will show that plants shift and tilt their leaves to maximize the amount of sunshine they will collect during the day. Reduce the amount of sunshine either with poor lighting or crowded conditions and you end up with taller, weaker stemmed foliage as it stretched up for what little sun it can see. Ditto for bloom stems coming out of the middle of really thick clumps of daffodils. Check out big clumps and you will normally see that only a few bulbs on the outside edges of the clump collected enough sunshine energy LAST year to actually produce a bloom this year!
Keith Kridler
Mt. Pleasant, Texas
Keith, the photo at the link was taken in ultraviolet light, not Infrared light (the other direction outside of the ROYGBIV visible light spectrum). I do like the experimenting you were doing with your infrared thermometer though! I’m sure the temperature difference might influence insects.
I read something recently about how bees have a static electricity charge and that before they visit a flower, the flower has an opposite charge. Opposite charges attract and that is one reason so much pollen gets stuck to the bee! The article went on to say that after the bee has visited a flower, the charge of the flower changes and for a certain amount of time another bee could tell that flower has been recently visited and would choose another flower. http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/02/21/bees-can-sense-the-electric-fields-of-flowers/
Keith,
That probably ties in with what I was taught year’s ago in that we should pollinate daffodils in warm sunny conditions. We were advised to not try pollinating in cold conditions. Something like that anyway.
Dave
I put the Washington Post page on the wrong comment page-this is where it should be and I hope you you will read this link http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/metro/urban-jungle/pages/130312.html?tid=rr_mod because it reflects what Keith is trying to gauge in the temperatures surrounding the daffodil and what the bee needs to be able to fly. The bee is an amazing creature and very smart!!! We can learn from this example but Bill Pannill knew this and I hope we rub some bees knees together on this. Kate