Wildflowers do benefit crops

    In recent years, farmers have been using wildflowers in their Conservation Reserve Program land in Colorado to help with pollinators. There are many state and federal programs all over the United States and Europe that exist to increase pollinator habitats on farms.  
    A three-year study at Cornell ended this season to compare whether planting wildflowers increased pollinators. The study took place on 12 small New York state farms. The context of the study was to represent a gradient of landscapes. Some farms were surrounded by natural habitat while others were surrounded by agricultural lands. Each of the 12 farms had two strawberry plots. One of the plots had a wildflower strip, and the second had a control strip on the opposite side of the farm which was edged with mowed grass.
    The results demonstrated that pollinators effectively increased each year. As part of the study, Cornell researchers conducted surveys of pests, wasps that parasitize pests, fruit yield and fruit damage on the strawberry plots. Bees increased from between 25 to 55 percent with plots surrounded by wildflower areas. With surveying pests, any wildflowers outside of the plantings attracted the most pests. In these plantings they did not attract more parasitic wasps either, according to Heather Grab, Ph.D. She is the first author and co-author of the study for the paper, “Landscape Context Shifts the Balance of Costs and Benefits from Wildflower Border on Multiple Ecosystem Services.”
    It was discovered that the area or size of the wildflower plots do matter. Too small a wildflower strip planted with farms surrounded by natural habitat did little to improve pollinators and beneficial insects. Even farms surrounded by other farms proved that making the wildflower strip too small added no improvement for beneficial insects.

The full article is available in our e-Edition. Click here to subscribe.