Hello to all of you!!
 
         My name is Ana Maria Quiniones, I am from Quito-Ecuador.
I will do my best with my english, since spanish is my first
language.
 
I am working on a project for sexual seed production in Oxalis tuberosa Mol.
(an andean tuber like potatoe.)  The main objective of my project
is to develop a methodology for the abundant production of sexual seed
for its storage on the germplasm bank CIP-Quito.
Manual pollination is too laborious, so that is why I thought on using
honey bees and bumble bees for this purpose.
Since I need the seed to come from specific crosses, I built a
greenhouse divided in four small confinements. Each cross was put
inside each compartment with a hive of bees, so that I could assure
that the seed obtained belonged specifically to that cross, avoiding any
type of pollen contamination.
I had no problem with bumble bee pollination (Bombus funebris), I
obtained a high amount of seed.  I collected these bees from the outside
because I do not know a method for rearing them.  If you know a method
I will be glad if you could help me.
 
I did have problems working with Apis mellifera, because they were
submissed to stress conditions. They were confined into a small
space (1.5 meters width, 2 meters length and 2 meters high),  with no
way for getting out.  I fed them only with sugar solution, so they
were forced to search for pollen, encouraging them to pollinate my
Oxalis flowers. At first I reached excellent results, obtaining a
high amount of sexual seed, but then my bees stoped pollinating
and died.  I think the main problem I have is weather, we have
an average temperature of 13 xC and we are at 3050 meters high.
I will be glad to receive advice related to these type of work.
Believe it or not, this is the first work made on controlled sexual
seed production in Ecuador, and the first done on Oxalis tuberosa on the
whole world.  So I hope you understand the scarcity of bibliography
and few help I have here in South America.
 
I will be glad if some of you could help me.
 
THANKING YOU IN ADVANCE,
                        Ana Maria
 
 
--
        Ana Maria Quinones
        Centro Internacional de la Papa
        Casilla 17-16-129-CEQ
        Quito, Ecuador
        Telf. +593-2-690990, Internet: [log in to unmask]