Demonstrating Creation of Habitat for Beneficial Insects – Year 2 (2019)

Abstract

Many people are interested in protecting pollinators by creating good habitat for them. The same habitat (flowers and grasses of varied shapes and sizes that provide blooms throughout the growing season) is also good for other beneficial arthropods (including both insects and arachnids, like spiders and predatory mites) that are natural enemies of pests. There are a lot of different ways to establish these plants and manage weeds during the establishment process. In this project, we demonstrate some of these options, while also collecting data on how effective (both in terms of plant establishment success and attracting beneficial insects) and costly each method is. In this second year of the project, we continued to maintain the plots established in 2018, collected data on the time and costs required and weed control achieved using each method, visually documented the growth of the habitat plants, and collected arthropods. From May through September we sampled all plots 25 times using four different techniques and collected numerous arthropods. Identification is ongoing, but some preliminary results are presented here. Successfully establishing habitat for beneficial arthropods is a multi-year process.