This element is about the processes of pollination and the functions of plant parts involved in pollination and fertilization.
- Parts of flowers involved in pollination: peduncle, receptacle, sepals, petals, stamen, anther, filament, pollen grain, stigma, style, ovary, ovule. Drawn here: R2101 – Flowers, fruits and seeds
- Agents of natural pollination (bees, moths flies and birds), wind and water. These are also given in the link above.
AO2: You will need to know and be able to write about the impacts of temperature, light levels, humidity and nutrition on pollination and fertilization in different plant species. Cross pollination and processes to ensure this occurs, and methods to promote pollination eg: encouraging pollinating insects. The syllabus doesn’t give any pointers on what they want to see here, so I think anything reasonable will be ok. If the plant’s health is suffering, it might not be able to reproduce so well, so anything that affects that in terms of the environment might be negative. In terms of encouraging pollinating insects, the plants make themselves attractive to their pollinator, but we can help with companion planting to try to draw more insects in around the plants.
AO3: Apply your knowledge to increase fruit/seed production to include selecting sites for planting, creating micro-climates, selecting suitable pollination partners. Again, you could give all kinds of examples here, from siting sweetcorn (Zea mays) in a windy spot because they are wind pollinated and growing them in blocks to help the pollen to land on a stigma or another plant, creating a walled kitchen garden for shelter, and selecting apples in the same pollination groups to ensure that they can pollinate each other.
They also want you to know about changes in invertebrate population, impacts on pollination , and the role of gardens in population restoration. I think that here you would be expected to discuss ways in which garden habitats can be planned to be wildlife friendly. You could give examples here of growning wildlife meadows instead of having a lawn, and leaving sheltered spots which are undisturbed for bees or other insects to live.
Gardening studies 