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Evaluating the status of wild bees on your apple farm

Curious about the diversity of pollinators on your farm? Want to know if wild bees are abundant in your orchard blocks? There’s an app for that!

WiBee (pronounced We-bee) is a smartphone app developed by the Gratton Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that allows growers and interested community members to collect high-quality data on wild bee abundance and diversity on farm, as well as non-crop habitats. This project collaborates with the Northeast Pollinator Partnership for anyone who has used the NEPP Bee Count App in previous years.

This app is available on App Store or Google Play.

The interactive guide helps you easily identify and distinguish native bees from honeybees while the actual assessment takes only three 5-minute observations per orchard block. An easy-to-follow protocol on how to collect high-quality data is included.

Click here to see more...

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Will Weather Hold Off for Harvest - Eric Hunt

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After some unseasonably warm temperatures to start the week, we've seen a shift to much cooler, more seasonable conditions across the region. What can we expect in the days ahead, and how might the forecast impact harvest activity? Nebraska Extension Ag Climatologist Eric Hunt has the answer.