Role of Pollinators and Effectiveness of three Pollination Methods on the Yield of Pumpkin (Cucurbita Pepo) at Ashanti - Mampong Campus of College of Agriculture Education in Ashanti Region of Ghana

The experiment was conducted at the multipurpose experimental field of the University of Education, Winneba, Mampong Ashanti Campus. The objective was to investigate into the pollination of pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo). The Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) was used with three treatments replicated three times. It was observed from the results that most of the foraging activities of bees often occur in the morning (6: 00 am 11: 00 am) but from (12: 00-6: 00pm) their activities reduce drastically. Fruit set, fruit size, weight and number of seed increased as the number of visits by Apis mellifera also increases per female flower, at which the highest fruit set level was reached. The treatments were Hand pollination, Open/Insect pollination and No pollination. It was found out that, with the exception of fruit length and weight the hand pollination was very significant (p less than 0.05) on Seed weight, Number of seed per fruit, Pericarp of fruit and Diameter of fruit. The flowers which were Hand pollinated produced the highest mean values for the yield parameters, followed by the Open/Insect pollinated flowers and No pollination which yielded no fruit respectively. Farmers in and around Mampong Ashanti can adopt hand pollination for better pumpkin yield and increased profit