Wild pollinators of avocado and orchard characteristics influencing fruit set

Avocado is widely recognized as a crop whose production is limited by poor pollination. Honey bees generally prefer non-crop flowers or other flowering crops to avocado in agricultural context. However, it is poorly understood which other bees, flies and other insects pollinate avocado and how their abundance at avocado flowers is influenced by in-field and landscape-level habitat features. We used timed visual scans to measure insect visitation to avocado flowers at 10 farms in Ventura, California throughout the season in 2024 and 2025. We identified visitors in the field to taxonomic morphogroups, then collected voucher specimens to identify insects to genus and species in the lab. We returned to trees where we collected visitors and measured fruit set by counting the numbers and sizes of avocado fruits. We characterized each orchard in terms of avocado flowering, non-crop floral abundance, continuously-measured temperature, and the natural habitat surrounding each orchard. We then measured associations between flower visitation and various orchard characteristics. Our preliminary results indicate that both floral abundance and richness were associated positively and significantly with fruit count, regardless of if flowers were from weeds or intentionally planted hedgerows. This is likely due to the impact of flowers in the orchard on pollinators, and suggests potential benefits to diversifying agricultural systems and increasing floral diversity for pollination.