Analyze Pollination

The Analyze Pollination page is where you will spend your time investigating diferent scenarios for pollination in your orchards. There are two primary sections on this page: Scenario Manager and Charts.

Scenario Manager

The Scenario Manager is used to define, manipulate, store, and run different scenarios that are to be investigated with the model.

Run Model Button

When the Run Model button is pressed, the current Scenario definition is used as input for the model. While the model is exectuting, the text on the button changes from "Run Model" to "Working...". It may take from ten seconds to more than a minute to complete the model run depending on factors such as orchard design and server traffic.

General Scenario Parameters

The next section of the Scenario Manager contains some general scenario parameters. The first one is a drop-down list which contains any scenarios you have saved. If you do not have a saved scenario, the list will contain only one line which indicates "No Saved Scenarios". You do not have to save any scenarios but it can make it easier to recall earlier conditions that you ran.

The next parameter is the start date. This is the date that the model execution begins and should be set to be close to when you expect blossoms to start in your orchard. You can select the date by pressing the small calendar icon next to the text field. This brings up a calendar date selector. Note that the year of your selection is not important, just the month and the day.

Next is the selector for weather. A number of weather conditions have been preloaded into the model for you to use. When you have selected particular weather condition, you may view the temperature and rainfall by pressing the "View" link next to the weather drop-down list.

The last parameter in this group is the selected orchard for the scenario. This drop-down list contains all orchards you have defined. If you want to view or edit your orchards, you can select the "View My Orchards" link.

Bee-Related Parameters

ALMOPOL models the cross-pollinating behavior of honeybees and blue orchard bees. This section of the Scenario Manager allows you to define the relevant input information for these bees.

In the honeybee group, there is a checkbox to select or deselect using honeybees in the scenario. Following that are two parameters relating to the strength and density of honeybees. The first parameter is Colonies/Acre which is the average number of colonies in your orchard per acre. The next parameter is Frames/Colony which is the average number of frames of bees in these colonies.

In the blue orchard bee group, there is also a checkbox to select or deselect using blue orchard bees in the scenario. The Bees/Acre parameter is a measure of how many total blue orchard bees per acre are to be considered in this scenario. Note, this number includes both male and female bees. The Start Date parameter the date that blue orchard bees start foraging. Generally, it should be after the model start date mentioned above. If the selected weather does not have a date corresponding to this month and day, an error is reported. Again, the selected year is not important, only the month and day.

Scenario Management

You can save your current scenario (Save), save it with a new name (Save As..) and you can also view and edit all your scenarios (View Scenarios).

Charts

The Charts section includes two placeholders for model results to be shown. When you first get to the Analyze Pollination page, these chart placeholders are empty until you have completed running a scenario. Toolbar buttons on the top of each chart (along with a corresponding menu obtained by right-clicking on the chart) allow you to save, print, print preview, or change properties of the chart. Also, if you hold down the left mouse button and drag it over a rectangular portion of the chart, the chart will be zoomed and allows scrolling to view the entire chart at that zoom level. You will see small arrows on each zoomed axis which allows you to zoom back out.

The top chart is shows bloom progression for all the almond cultivars contained in the scenario's orchard. The different cultivars are plotted as separate, differently-colored lines.

The bottom chart is able to show multiple types of data including nutset by cultivar over time and bee presence on cultivars over time. The Chart Type drop-down list contains all the currently available chart types. Changing the chart type will cause the model to recalulate and repaint the chart. This may take a short while, similar to the time it takes to run the model.