Royal College of Art

Greg Orrom Swan, Louis Alderson-Bythell, Tashia Tucker and Sam Roots won the RCA Biodesign Challenge 2017 and will present their project POM: an agricultural technology that encourages flies to be more efficient pollinators. It is designed for a world in which bee pollination is no longer viable, due to declining bee populations.

Flies already play a major role in pollination, accounting for about 30% of pollination overall and a far higher proportion in cities. Flies make more visits to flowers than bees, but the chances of a visit resulting in successful pollination is lower.

POM lures flies using a controlled release of pheromones from a remote-controlled node, which clusters them around the flowers needing pollination. Nodes distributed throughout the farm enable this ‘cloud of flies’ to be shepherded from one region to another, covering all the blossoms that might be in flower at that point. POM ensures both efficient pollination and fruit harvests in the future.

POM (Pollinator & Orchard Management) POM is an agricultural technology that encourages flies to be more efficient pollinators, in scenarios where bee pollination is no longer viable, due to declining bee populations. Flies are already inadvertent pollinators, playing a major role in this within cities, and in total, accounting for about 30% of all pollination. POM works by emitting pheromones from a device to lure groups of flies at timed intervals. With multiple nodes, fly movement patterns can be manipulated so that their behavior can be organized. Giving us the ability to ensure both efficient pollination and fruit harvests in the future. — www.flypollination.com RCA Press write up: www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/rca-bio-design-using-flies-pollinate-fields-could-transform-agriculture/ — This was a supporting video to our Bio Design Challenge entry, it was the winning RCA (Royal College of Art, London) entry, and will be presented at the BioDesign Challenge Summit, MOMA, New York, at the end of June 2017. See more info about the challenge here: www.biodesignchallenge.org — Project by: Louis Alderson-Bythell Greg Orrom Swan Tashia Tucker Sam Roots