Featured Article

What is all the BUZZ about???

Submitted by Justin Mount, Resource Conservationist, Wenatchee

Recently the Wenatchee Field Office had the opportunity to experience some OJT and technology transfer.  Regional Biologist Wendell Gilgert from the West Technology Center in Portland, Oregon, along with Tim Dring, NRCS Washington State Biologist, made time to view orchard production and share their knowledge for integrating native pollinators and beneficial predatory insects.

Honey bees receive most of the credit for crop pollination, yet the number of managed honey bee hives is half of what it was in the 1950s.  This number continues to decline due to pests, disease, insecticides, and other problems.  Recent research, however, has demonstrated that native bees make a significant contribution to crop pollination—in some cases providing one hundred percent of the pollination required by a crop.  Today, these native pollinators are more important than ever as hives of European honey bees become more expensive and, in some locations, difficult to acquire.  Also, while individual species of native bee are susceptible to their own pests, a diverse community of many species has been shown to better provide sufficient pollination services. 

In the face of declining numbers of European honey bees and degraded habitat for native crop-pollinating insects, the NRCS has many opportunities within its existing programs and practices to benefit these creatures.  By considering the habitat needs of native bees (there are more than 4,000 species of in North America) and other pollinators (butterflies, flies, etc.), conservation practices can have a greater overall ecological benefit, as well as an increased economic return for growers of adjacent insect-pollinated crops. 

An NRCS foundation goal of the strategic plan is healthy plant and animal communities; native pollinators and beneficial predatory insects in central Washington orchards work together to fulfill this objective.  Pollinators require blooming plants throughout the growing season to meet energy requirements.  Native pollinators forage for nectar in colder, wetter weather.  They will work earlier in the mornings and later in the evenings than domestic pollinators such as the European honey bee.

 Beneficial predatory insects for orchards such as ladybird beetles, Bracnoid wasps, Syphrid flies, predatory mites, lacewings, spiders, chalcid wasps, Praying mantids, Dragonflies, soldier beetles and snakeflies, need safe zones to over-winter, reproduce and avoid potentially fatal crop protection chemicals.  These two objectives may join together to provide plantings that effectively increase the presence of beneficial insects and native pollinators.

When one considers healthy plant and animal communities, insects just fly by the frontal lobe and native pollinators are rarely consider animals.  With increasing consumer demand for biologically based (“environmentally friendly”) grown farm food, these components are being revisited.  Some may call it ‘holistic’ I would offer it is an informed ‘systems’ approach by incorporating plantings specifically for beneficial insects and resident pollinators.

Jessie and I took Tim and Wendell to four orchards: apple, pear, cherry, conventional and biologically based production systems in the Wenatchee area.  Shadowing these seasoned biologists was humbling, educational and great OJT.  These guys know how to identify critters plus interpret sounds and smells of their surroundings.  We explored the orchard floors, riparian zones, nearby native habitat, dirt piles and earthen ditches.  We also engaged a landowner to consider plantings for beneficial insects and pollinators.  In the process, we learned some subtle methods regarding the incorporation of these concepts into the planning process and into the objectives of our customers.

Native pollinators typically nest and over winter in hollow stems, snags, rodent nests or below ground.  The native bees of North America have declined rapidly and domestic bees are thought have been an economically and viable substitute until the recent onset of the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).  Hives typically cost $40-50 each and availability may be hindered if CCD is not reigned in soon.  Native bees are significantly more efficient and have been shown to improve efficiency of the European honey bees when present.  This competition benefits the farmer, plants, humans and animals that feed on the fruit of the pollinators’ labor.  An ecologically and economically sound approach to these pollinators may include greater protection and consideration for native bees by judiciously managing blooming plants through the growing season and implementing an IPM plan that minimize impacts on non-target insects.

Conservation planners may use current conservation planning to benefit pollina­tors, particularly crop-pollinating native bees.  Native pollinator conservation practices focus on increasing the abundance of forage (pollen and nectar) and ensuring that it is available from early in the spring through the fall, adding or protecting potential nest sites, and providing a refuge from pesticides.
 

References for this article: 
(Mace Vaughan, Using Farm Bill Programs for Pollinator Conservation, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation: September 27, 2007)

< Back to... Conservation Footprints