Click this link to access the subject newsletter
Thoughts on Attracting Beneficials
The growing season is winding down and most of the planting has been done for spring. This includes more plants for “hover island”. A part of this process is doing the research to first figure out what we are trying to achieve and secondly choosing, ordering and planting the plants for this plan.
At lot of time is spent with online searches. One of the things I was struck with is the strategy that is used by seed companies who offer seed mixtures for beneficial gardens. For a time I actually considered offering a seed mixture customized for strawberry production. The strategy seems to be to throw in seeds for all plants known to attract beneficials including bees, predators and parasites. One interesting thing about the mixtures that I looked at was that many included what I would consider weeds. Several times I thought to myself, I wouldn’t want my neighbor planting this mixture. Next thing would be their weed seeds infesting my lawn and garden.
This realization helped me to adjust my planning. Because strawberries are an early season crop I started my search for plants that attract beneficials AND bloom early to it can benefit strawberry production and early season pest control. There are a few shrubs and trees that bloom early but I’m looking for short term annual and perennials.
Before actually making choices from the short list of early spring flowering plants I wanted to make sure that attractiveness to mason bees is considered. It turns out that having plants bloom all spring and summer is not necessary for mason bees. The adults basically live about six weeks. A spring strawberry crop here in zone 7 blooms in mid to late April. So, now we’ve bracketed the time frame. We were looking for plants attractive to mason bees and other beneficials during April into May.
What we came up with are golden alexanders (Zizia aurea), bulbs like anenome and scilla and dandelions. We have been growing dandelions for edible greens so they will serve double duty.
One more thought for today …. orchardists who are using mason bees to pollinate crops like almonds have noted something very interesting. They recommend mowing the dandelions while the almonds are blooming because the bees need to be pollinating the almonds, not foraging on dandelions - weeds. I plan to keep a notebook with me to jot down observations on:
- date of flowering for each plant
- insects on the plant and flowers
- do the bees prefer another plant over the strawberry
Hover Island
Strange title? We are venturing into a new area on this blog. This is all about beneficial insects, companion planting, garden insectaries, and many other terms. This post will introduce the subject.
We have been trying to figure out the best way to approach this large and new area. We considered setting up a separate website and even a separate blog. For now, I think the best place to start is here.
The reason for “Hover Island”? One term used when someone creates a habitat for beneficials is to call the area an island. Hover comes from Hoverflies. Our whole intention is to create a habitat that will increase hoverflies in our nursery area. For a long time we have search for information on this very important group of insect species. Hoverflies are also called syrphid flies.
Why syrphid flies? First, the adults are active when temperatures are around 55 degrees. Here in Delaware these temperatures are typical of April when strawberries are blooming. The adults are effective pollinators. We have started using and releasing mason bees in the nursery and are using them in pollination cages. We have found them to be very effective. But, you can never have too many pollinators, especially pollinators that are present and more importantly active very early in the spring.
Syrphids or hoverflies have a second HUGE benefit. The larval stages are voracious predators of aphids and other soft bodied pests. The adults tend to deposit eggs where aphids are present.
It is especially important to keep aphids in check in a strawberry nursery. Aphids can transmit viruses so their control is essential to the long term health of the species and selections we grow and sell.
Our intention is to create what we are calling “Hover Island”. We have already selected and purchased seeds and plants that will be grown for this area. We will get into the specifics soon.
We also want to point out that other beneficials will be welcome in Hover Island and in our nursery. The plants we have selected will attract a wide variety of beneficials including hoverflies. The plants selected are being selected to offer habit to hoverflies all season, not just early spring. We get some fruit production in the fall so having beneficials that will pollinate and protect the fall crop is welcome indeed.
And, last but not least, we are selecting plant species that are attractive to mason bees as well. We had success with using polliantion cages to isolate and pollinate several crops for seed production. The mason bees reproduced. We hope that even with expansion of our pollination cages the mason bees can reproduce enough to sustain themselves so we don’t have to continually buy mason bees. Mason bees is another subject for another post.
Look for more posts in the near future for the category Hover Island and other categories. We will take some pictures to share about this very important undertaking.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- …
- 23
- Next Page »