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Insect Visitors of Specialty Cut Flowers in High Tunnels

Various strategies incorporate floral resources into agricultural landscapes to support beneficial insects. Specialty cut flower production offers a rarely explored approach to offer floral resources while yielding a marketable product for growers. We characterized insect visitation to six species o...

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Autores principales: Nobes, Samantha R, Herreid, Judith S, Panter, Karen L, Jabbour, Randa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9175293/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35482614
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jee/toac051
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author Nobes, Samantha R
Herreid, Judith S
Panter, Karen L
Jabbour, Randa
author_facet Nobes, Samantha R
Herreid, Judith S
Panter, Karen L
Jabbour, Randa
author_sort Nobes, Samantha R
collection PubMed
description Various strategies incorporate floral resources into agricultural landscapes to support beneficial insects. Specialty cut flower production offers a rarely explored approach to offer floral resources while yielding a marketable product for growers. We characterized insect visitation to six species of specialty cut flowers. Due to Wyoming’s growing conditions, the flowers were grown in high tunnels, thus offering insight into insect abundance in this unique semi-controlled environment. The flower species tested were Calendula officinalis, Celosia argentea, Daucus carota, Helichrysum bracteatum, Matthiola incana, and a Zinnia elegans-Zinnia hybrida mixture. At least four species were in bloom from early June through late September. The flowers attracted diverse pollinator groups including Diptera, Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, and Lepidoptera. Bees most often visited Ca. officinalis, H. bracteatum, and Celosia spicata whereas flies most often visited D. carota. Bombus were the most oft-collected bees from the flowers and were found on all six cut flower species. Wasp abundance varied little across the cut flowers, but wasp community composition was distinct. The highest diversity of wasp families was collected from the Zinnia mixture (seven families) in contrast to less diverse collections from Ce. spicata (two families). The most abundant wasp families collected were Crabronidae and Sphecidae. Our experiment documented that ornamental cut flower species attract pollinator insects into high tunnel environments. All cut flower species tested were visited by multiple types of beneficial insects. Planting a mixture of specialty cut flowers can support insect diversity while also diversifying on-farm agricultural products through sale of cut flower stems.
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spelling pubmed-91752932022-06-09 Insect Visitors of Specialty Cut Flowers in High Tunnels Nobes, Samantha R Herreid, Judith S Panter, Karen L Jabbour, Randa J Econ Entomol Short Communication Various strategies incorporate floral resources into agricultural landscapes to support beneficial insects. Specialty cut flower production offers a rarely explored approach to offer floral resources while yielding a marketable product for growers. We characterized insect visitation to six species of specialty cut flowers. Due to Wyoming’s growing conditions, the flowers were grown in high tunnels, thus offering insight into insect abundance in this unique semi-controlled environment. The flower species tested were Calendula officinalis, Celosia argentea, Daucus carota, Helichrysum bracteatum, Matthiola incana, and a Zinnia elegans-Zinnia hybrida mixture. At least four species were in bloom from early June through late September. The flowers attracted diverse pollinator groups including Diptera, Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, and Lepidoptera. Bees most often visited Ca. officinalis, H. bracteatum, and Celosia spicata whereas flies most often visited D. carota. Bombus were the most oft-collected bees from the flowers and were found on all six cut flower species. Wasp abundance varied little across the cut flowers, but wasp community composition was distinct. The highest diversity of wasp families was collected from the Zinnia mixture (seven families) in contrast to less diverse collections from Ce. spicata (two families). The most abundant wasp families collected were Crabronidae and Sphecidae. Our experiment documented that ornamental cut flower species attract pollinator insects into high tunnel environments. All cut flower species tested were visited by multiple types of beneficial insects. Planting a mixture of specialty cut flowers can support insect diversity while also diversifying on-farm agricultural products through sale of cut flower stems. Oxford University Press 2022-04-28 /pmc/articles/PMC9175293/ /pubmed/35482614 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jee/toac051 Text en © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Short Communication
Nobes, Samantha R
Herreid, Judith S
Panter, Karen L
Jabbour, Randa
Insect Visitors of Specialty Cut Flowers in High Tunnels
title Insect Visitors of Specialty Cut Flowers in High Tunnels
title_full Insect Visitors of Specialty Cut Flowers in High Tunnels
title_fullStr Insect Visitors of Specialty Cut Flowers in High Tunnels
title_full_unstemmed Insect Visitors of Specialty Cut Flowers in High Tunnels
title_short Insect Visitors of Specialty Cut Flowers in High Tunnels
title_sort insect visitors of specialty cut flowers in high tunnels
topic Short Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9175293/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35482614
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jee/toac051
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