Strategic Farm Week: In-field flower strips

Can insecticide use be reduced with in-field flower strips?

Managing pests while encouraging and supporting beneficial insects is an essential part of an integrated pest management (IPM) strategy and is a key component of sustainable crop production.

Flower strips attract insects that are beneficial for pollination and pest control and field margins play an important role in enhancing insect predators and parasitoids. Trials at Strategic Farm East and Strategic Farm West have been investigating whether flower strips in the field or at the field edge can encourage beneficials.

Strategic Farm Scotland is a large mixed farm with areas of non-cropped land. The first year baselining activities were to assess the prevalence of key cereal pests, their natural enemies and pollinators across the farm.

Join Mark Ramsden (ADAS), Lorna Cole (SRUC), Aoife O’Driscoll (NIAB), Patrick Barker (Strategic Farm East) and David Aglen (Strategic Farm Scotland) to discuss the results from this work. Compare and contrast results from Scotland to East Anglia and hear more about the practicalities of growing flower strips, monitoring pests and encouraging natural enemies on your farm.