PlantEN

Protect your crops increasing biodiversity around

If you want to increase biodiversity in the environment to protect your crops from pests, this APP will help you select the most interesting plants to encourage the presence of beneficial auxiliary fauna.

The conservation biological control emerges as an indispensable component of sustainable development of crops both outdoors, either fruit or vegetable as crops under coat. It is well known that isolation and loss of semi-natural habitats reduces biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, with negative consequences for biological pest control.

Thus, conservation biological control involves modifying the environment and manipulate the habitat to encourage and enhance the activity of natural enemies. But it is necessary to note that some plants, far from contributing to pest control, on the other hand can promote their presence or act as a reservoir of the main viruses that affect crops. Therefore, for a long time, the project RECOVER 2020. Milestone 2.2.4 New technologies to increase the efficiency of biological pest control in areas of greenhouses, we studied how native plants can be used as shelter for beneficial arthropods, acting as barriers phytosanitary and contributing to a significant improvement of the landscape with all that it entails certain environmental benefits and contribute to improving the service that biodiversity can provide to maintaining a sustainable agricultural ecosystem.

This application is a practical guide for those interested in increasing biodiversity in a functional way on their crops, by establishing hedges or small islands of biodiversity known as "green infrastructure". The establishment of hedgerows, green corridors, islands of native vegetation around our crops will allow us to find in nature and keep close to many allies, whether arthropods, reptiles or birds that serve as true phytosanitary barriers holding back the free dispersion pests of crop to crop. This is not to increase biodiversity itself, but to do so mainly enhances the presence of species that are useful to us, providing them with all the resources they need to establish whether food (pollen, nectar, or alternative prey) , shelter or breeding sites.

With this APP you can select plants that serve to attract these beneficial insects near your crops to help you regulate insect pest populations. 25 plants described herein have been selected, a total of 70 species, to fulfill certain requirements considered essential to attract beneficial insects. It is native shrubs, commercially available and are capable of harboring natural enemies of pests.

In this application a description of the characteristics of each plant is offered. the interest of the plant for biological control is also described, providing a list of those natural enemies observed in them for sampling and abundance. information about their attraction for two of the most important crop pests are also offered, such as whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) and thrips (Frankliniella occidentalis) that can reach shelter are. This APP can also be used to search for plants based on natural enemies that want to promote about your crops. It provides a description of the main natural enemies found in these plants, classified by functional groups: predators or parasitoids with a short description of the biology of the auxiliary, which is the plague that controls on which plants can be found and abundance.