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UW EXTENSION | AGRICULTURE & HORTICULTURE | USDA | RISK MANAGEMENT AGENCY
BY SCOTT SCHELL
I want to make the case that all Wyoming farmers and ranchers can benefit by promoting pollinators. Creating, enhancing and protecting habitat that provides flowers during the growing season can promote pollinators, increase crop yields, reduce pest insect populations and add value to your land. Pollinators Increase Yields
and a multitude of parasitoid wasp species. Parasitoid wasps seek out pest insect adults, immatures and even their eggs, as places to lay their eggs. These eggs hatch and eventually kill the pest insect. The parasitoid wasps in the genus Bathyplectes attack alfalfa weevils and are an example of an important beneficial species that feeds on flower nectar as adults.
To ensure profitable yields, humanHoney bee on native Kannah Creek sulfur buckwheat (Eriogonum umbellatum) Pollinators Need a Hand managed pollinators – usually honey bees and alfalfa leafcutter bees – are brought in One way to promote people in the agricultural industry care about to provide pollination services. Dry beans, pollinator populations, and wildlife in general, the long-term sustainability of agricultural though they have self-fertile flowers, show is to ensure they have healthy habitats that production, especially those who want to pass increased yield when wild pollinators, such as provide everything they need throughout on productive land to the next generation. To bumble bees, visit the flowers and “trip” them. their life cycles. learn more about how to enhance pollinator Livestock producers rely on the production Pollinator conservation seed mixes are habitats, check out the following resources. of grass, a wind-pollinated “crop,” and may not think there would be any Pollinators are the many animals, mostly insects, that Resources advantage to maintaining a diversity of visit flowers for rewards of nectar and pollen. As they move • Issue of “Rangelands Journal” flowering plants as part of their range from flower to flower, they transfer pollen that creates fertile devoted to pollinators in rangelands: management. Even grassland, however, seeds for the next generation of plants. bit.ly/rangepollinators can benefit from flowering plants in the • USDA Natural Resources Conservation plant community. Service (NRCS) website with pollinator available to add flowering plants and boost Pollinators Reduce Pests information: bit.ly/nrcspollinators pollination. I would recommend you check • Western SARE “Habitat Plantings and Evidence for this can be seen in pure any wild mix you are considering with your Restoration for Pollinators and Beneficial stands of crested or intermediate wheatgrass. county’s weed and pest district to make sure it Insects” factsheet offers guidance and other These pastures can become heavily infested doesn’t contain plant species that can become resources for planning pollinator plantings: with black grass bugs, a native insect that invasive in your region. bit.ly/restore4pollinators sucks the cell contents out of grass leaves, For enhancing pollinator and beneficial • UW Extension “Promoting Pollinators on stunting the plants and reducing the insect habitats on eligible land, the USDA Your Place, A Wyoming Guide” provides nutritional value of the forage. Black grass bug Natural Resources Conservation Service information on ornamental plant species, populations are rarely noticeable on native (NRCS) provides technical assistance through habitats favored by pollinators and an prairie where flowering plants help support its Conservation Stewardship Program excellent section on getting started with populations of their many predators and program. This and the Environmental beekeeping: bit.ly/yourplacepollinators parasitoids. Quality Incentives Program also • Pollinator Guide resources from Many of the same plants that benefit provide financial incentives to maintain Barnyards & Backyards magazine: pollinators also promote increased pollinator enhancements. bit.ly/BBpollinatorguide populations of beneficial insect species. The quickest way to find out if funding is These beneficial insects, the many predators available for enhancing your land is to contact or parasitoids of crop pest insects, can help your local field office. Use this link to find an Scott Schell is an entomology (insect) control pests in crops that don’t need insect NRCS office: bit.ly/nrcsfinder specialist in the UW College of Agriculture pollination. While the juvenile forms of many and Natural Resources Department of Pollinators Add Value to Your Land of these beneficial insects prey upon pests, Ecosystem Science and Management. their adult forms use nectar and pollen from The decline of many kinds of pollinators in Contact him at 307-766-2508 or flowers to survive and reproduce. the United States and around the world has sschell@uwyo.edu. Examples of these insects are green and been well documented, and the problem has brown lacewings, many tachinid fly species the potential to impact food production. Most
Photo: Jennifer Thompson
Farmers, ranchers benefit from promoting pollinators