More proof biodiversity reduces the need for chemicals: Leaving strips of wildflowers across fields of crops reduces pesticide use

It’s a well-established fact that pesticides can have many adverse effects not just to humans but to the very crops that they are supposed to protect as well. And as far as current efforts to reduce pesticide use go, one of the known ways to do so involves planting wildflowers right around the perimeter of fields to sort of “cage in” pests that may otherwise decimate planted crops in the field.

However, as you can probably imagine, this method is not very effective, or at least not as effective as it should or could be, considering that the pest-combating wildflowers can only be found near the outside of fields while the inner parts are left open and exposed. With this in mind, a team of researchers from the Center for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) has now started a five-year-long trial that will look into the effects of planting bright wildflowers all throughout crop fields with the sole intention of boosting natural predators of pests and reducing pesticide use.