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.

Artificial pollination methods rely primarily on air-jets, vibrating wands and trellis tapping which can spread pathogens. This problem can be addressed by non-contact sonic techniques that vibrate cells via sound waves yet how frequency and intensity affect pollination, seed set and fruit size remain unclear. Our study systematic characterizes frequency-dependent vibration events on greenhouse-grown tomato flowers comparing them with contact-induced oscillations from a vibrating wand and a mechanical shaker arm. Sonic vibrations in the frequency range from 50 to 10,000 Hz increased pollination, fruit size, weight, and seed set in Sweetelle and Endeavour commercial varieties. Scanning electron microscopy revealed sonication loosened the trichomes joining the poricidal cone lobes that encase the anthers filled with pollen. Ultra-sonic frequencies enlarged fruit size, whereas seed set remained constant thereby challenging the floral cells power-law rheological characteristics in different frequency scales. Our bioacoustics non-contact precision technology can be used to boost tomato floral self-pollination. Teaser Leveraging bioacoustics from bees and bats to boost precision pollination of tomato flowers and fruit size in commercial varieties