I was reading about Edmond Albius, the former slave who learned how to pollinate the vanilla plant (at age 12!), which is why we have commercial vanilla today.
Albius’s manual pollination method is still used today, as nearly all vanilla is pollinated by hand.
You should edit the wikipedia entry and include this!
I just looked at the Wikipedia page and I think it’s fine. They’ve cited some sources which detail the debate about which pollinators actually pollinate the plant. Compared to someone who’s got a degree studying plants, I know basically nothing. I’m just repeating what I’ve heard. If they’ve got a list of pollinators and are trying to narrow down the right one, then they’re closer to the truth than I am.