Precision Pollination Strategies for Advancing Horticultural Tomato Crop Production

Global climate change and anthropological activities have led to a decline in insect pollinators worldwide. Agricultural globalisation and intensification have also removed crops from their natural insect pollinators, and sparked research to identify alternate natural insect pollinators and artificial technologies. In certain countries such as Australia the importation of commercial insect pollinators is prohibited, necessitating manual labour to stimulate floral pollination. Artificial pollination technologies are now increasingly essential as the demand for food grown in protected facilities increases worldwide. For tomato fruits, precision pollination has the ability to vastly improve their seed set, size, yield, and quality under optimal environmental conditions and has become financially beneficial. Like many crops from the Solanaceae, tomatoes have a unique self-pollinating mechanism that requires stimulation of the floral organs to release pollen from the poricidal anthers. This review investigates various mechanisms employed to pollinate tomato flowers and discusses emerging precision pollination technologies. The advantages and disadvantages of various pollinating technologies currently available in the protected-cropping industry are described. We provide a buzz perspective on new promising pollination technologies involving robotic air and acoustic devices that are still in their nascency and could provide non-contact techniques to automate pollination for the tomato horticultural industry.