As we continue this month’s theme of agricultural biodiversity, I interview Rex Dufour, entomologist and organic pest control expert with ATTRA, the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service.
Rex describes the role of insects in the agroecosystem, and emphasizes the importance of preserving biodiversity to control insect pests. As he explains it, beneficial insects can act as “little hammers”, keeping harmful insect populations under control through predation and parasitizing. The key question is how we design our managed ecosystems to maximize these interactions and reduce our reliance on costly agrochemicals.
Please have a listen, and thanks for stopping by.
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2 responses to “Episode #2: Rex Dufour on Agrobiodiversity and Entomology”
I didn’t expect Frank’s early podcasts to be so informative and well chosen. Rex dufour is obviously a well informed and coherent speaker. It just shows how much human food security is dependent on wildlife at the bottom of the food chain such as plants and insects . As civilization encroaches ever further outward and more of the creatures we depend upon become extinct or locally extirpated the rivets of our agro-ecosystems fall off one by one. The systems rich in insect life maintained for centuries by fire and human control such as wild meadow and the prairie have no place in the plans of the developer, the industrialist, or the suburbanite. Insectary plants and polllinator habitat species will be the keystone of our agricultural security when the oil runs dry. What happens if we have killed them all by that point? Here is a study that concluded “that growers who left roughly 30 percent of their fields wild, allowing weeds and native plants to grow untended near or interspersed among their crops attracted more native pollinators, achieved considerably higher yields in canola seed, and as a result generated higher incomes than those who planted 100 percent of their fields with canola.”
http://ucbiotech.org/issues_pgl/ARTICLES/Morandin%26Winston%202003.pdf
and
http://www.xerces.org/2011/02/01/pollinating-local-is-the-new-buzz/
It’s a real shame that ATTRA’s funding is being withdrawn. I just downloaded all of their publications before the site goes offline.
Thanks Frank!
FARMSCAPING TO ENHANCE BIOLOGICAL CONTROL
by Rex Dufour
NCAT Agriculture Specialist
December 2000
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/farmscaping.pdf
Abstract: This publication contains information about
increasing and managing biodiversity on a farm to favor
beneficial organisms, with emphasis on beneficial insects.
The types of information farmscapers need to consider is
outlined and emphasized.
Appendices have information about various types and examples
of successful “farmscaping” (manipulations of the agricultural ecosystem), plants that attract beneficials, pests and their predators, seed blends to attract beneficial insects, examples of farmscaping, hedgerow
establishment and maintenance budgets, and a sample flowering table.
BIOINTENSIVE INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT (IPM)
By Rex Dufour
NCAT Agriculture Specialist
July 2001
http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/PDF/ipm.pdf
Abstract: This publication provides the rationale for biointensive Integrated Pest Management (IPM), outlines the concepts and tools of biointensive IPM, and suggests steps and provides informational resources for implementing IPM.
It is targeted to individuals interested in agriculture at all levels.