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Welcome to the web home for Field, Lab, Earth, the podcast from the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America. The podcast all about past and present advances in agronomic, crop, soil, and environmental sciences, our show features timely interviews with our authors about research in these fields.

Field, Lab, Earth releases on the third Friday of each month in addition to the occasional bonus episode. If you enjoy our show, please be sure to tell your friends and rate and review. If you have a topic, author, or paper you would like featured or have other feedback, please contact us on Twitter @fieldlabearth or use the email icon below. You can join our newsletter to receive notifications about new episodes and related resources here.

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  2. Wild Bee Sunflower Nectar Preferences with Dr. Jarrad Prasifka

Wild Bee Sunflower Nectar Preferences with Dr. Jarrad Prasifka

Apr 17, 2026

“Wild bee visitation unaffected by disparate nectar phenotypes in a sunflower inbred line population” with Dr. Jarrad Prasifka.

Bees are important pollinators for sunflowers. But, just like humans, they also have preferences, which means it’s important for sunflower breeders to breed the kinds of sunflowers that bees like best. In this episode, Dr. Jarrad Prasifka joins me to discuss sunflower nectar and how much it affects wild bee preferences for sunflower lines.

Tune in to learn:

·         How sunflower lines are bred

·         How researchers check for bee preferences

·         How nectar phenotypes affect wild bee preferences in sunflower

·         Which other factors affect wild bee preferences in sunflower

If you would like more information about this topic, this episode’s paper is available here: https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.70093

This paper is always freely available.

Contact us at podcast@sciencesocieties.org or on Twitter @FieldLabEarth if you have comments, questions, or suggestions for show topics, and if you want more content like this don’t forget to subscribe. If you’d like to see old episodes or sign up for our newsletter, you can do so here: https://fieldlabearth.libsyn.com/.

If you would like to reach out to Jarrad, you can find him here:
Jarrad.Prasifka@ars.usda.gov

Resources

CEU Quiz: https://web.sciencesocieties.org/Learning-Center/Courses/Course-Detail?productid=%7b303FF088-DA39-F111-88B5-00224808D3E1%7d 

Transcripts: https://www.rev.com/app/transcript/NjllMTRjNWM3NzQ2MzEwZDYwZDAxZjUzQ19FcFQxLVFkX2RC/o/VEMwOTU2NjY4ODM4 

Xerces Society Wild Bees page: https://www.xerces.org/endangered-species/wild-bees

Rachel Mallinger’s Website: http://www.rachelmallinger.com/research.html

Rachel Mallinger’s Field, Lab, Earth podcast: https://fieldlabearth.libsyn.com/insect-pollinators-and-confection-sunflowers-with-dr-rachel-mallinger

Review Article from Frontiers in Plant Science: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2018.00812/full

Entomological Society of America Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/entsocamerica/

Entomological Society of America Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/entsoc

Entomological Society of America X: https://twitter.com/EntsocAmerica

Field, Lab, Earth is Copyrighted by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.