Author: Stasie Maxwell
Date: December 20th, 2022
The Understory Initiative’s winter 2022 newsletter and impact report. This report highlights our accomplishments in 2022, the impacts we’re having on understory habitats and local communities.
Download: TUI Winter 2022 Newsletter & Impact Report (.pdf; 15.5 MB)
Author: Southern Oregon Monarch Advocates Date: 2016
This excellent guide discusses basic botanical concepts and the importance of pollinators in the ecosystem. It then describes 18 plants that are native to Southern Oregon, sorted by early, mid- and late-blooming species, with beautiful photographs. Each plant is listed with information about the types of pollinators that may use it for nectar, or as a “host plant”.
Download: Native Pollinator Plants of Southern Oregon (pdf; 4 Mb)
Author: Scientific Reports Date: 2021
This study examines the interaction of the wild bee communities and honey bees kept in hives around wildflower strips and pollinator-dependent crops. The study took place across 21 farms in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. The real beauty of this publication is the extensive literature cited section with links to the cited publications, many of which focus on honey bee/native bee competition and effects on species richness and abundance.
Download: Honey bee hives decrease wild bee abundance, species richness, and fruit count on farms regardless of wildflower strips (pdf; 3 Mb)
Author: Xerces Society Date: 2019
Monarch butterflies are in decline in North America, and restoring monarch habitat, including roadsides, is important to the species’ recovery. Monarch caterpillars require milkweed (primarily in the genus Asclepias) to complete their development. A diversity of milkweed species is found on roadsides, and monarchs lay their eggs readily on milkweed plants in roadsides and consume nectar from milkweed flowers.
Roadsides provide more than just milkweed. They can also provide diverse nectar sources to feed adult monarchs and other pollinators—but ensuring that roadsides can continue to provide the best habitat requires some thought and care. This guide highlights best management practices to reduce the impacts of herbicides on monarchs.
Download PDF: Roadside Habitat for Monarchs: Monarch Butterflies, Weeds, and Herbicides (548KB)
Author: Xerces Society Date: 2018
Organic agriculture generally supports higher biodiversity than conventional management, and organic farms can play an important role in protecting and supporting bees and other beneficial insects in agricultural landscapes. Many organic operations already have good numbers of wild bees, as well as predators and parasitoids that attack crop pests. These beneficial species may provide most or all necessary crop pollination and pest control services when adequate habitat is available and preventive non-chemical pest management practices are implemented.
Unfortunately, however, even pesticides allowed for use in organic agriculture can cause harm to bees and other beneficial insects. There are many considerations when choosing between different pesticide options, including efficacy, specificity, cost, and risks to human health and the environment. This guide provides a brief overview of how to select and apply pesticides for organic farm operations while minimizing pollinator mortality. Many of the practices outlined here for protecting pollinators also can help to protect beneficial insects such as parasitoid wasps and flies; predaceous wasps, flies, and beetles; ambush and assassin bugs; lacewings; and others. The presence of these insects can further reduce pest pressure and the need for chemical treatments.
Download PDF: Organic Pesticides: Minimizing Risks to Pollinators and Beneficial Insects (2MB)
Author: Xerces Society
Site preparation is one of the most important and often inadequately addressed components for successfully installing pollinator habitat. These guidelines provide step-by-step instructions, helpful suggestions, and regional timelines & checklists for preparing both small and large sites using:
Download PDF: Organic Site Preparation for Wildflower Establishment (6MB)
Author: Project Milkweed Date: 2017
Project Milkweed is a collaboration with the Xerces Society, the native seed industry, and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to increase commercial availability of milkweed seed. Since 2010 this partnership has worked to address some of the major production challenges faced by the native seed industry and has expanded commercially viable milkweed production to regions where seed was not previously available.
During Project Milkweed surveys of native seed producers, yield loss from insect pests was consistently the most significant challenge reported. Further complicating the situation is the abundance of monarch butterfly caterpillars, crop pollinators, and predatory insects, all of which are typically found in seed production plots and which are vulnerable to insecticides used for pest control.
Download PDF: Managing Milkweed Crop Pests: A Native Seed Industry Guide (3MB)
Author: The Xerces Society Date: 2016
Native thistles are a largely misunderstood and wrongly maligned group of wildflowers. These diverse plants fill a variety of significant ecological niches, similar to cone flowers, prairie clovers, camas, and compass plant. Native thistles are not only resplendent – with sublime blue-green foliage, interesting stem and leaf architecture and gorgeous blossoms – they are hardy, thriving in dry and disturbed habitats.
Download PDF: Native Thistles: A Conservation Practitioner’s Guide (3MB)
Author: The Xerces Society Date: unknown
This bulletin will help you use cover crops to encourage populations of pollinators and beneficial insects on your farm while you address your other resource concerns. It begins with a broad overview of pollinator and beneficial insect ecology, then describes cover crop selection and management, how to make cover crops work on your farm, and helpful and proven crop rotations. It will also touch on the limitations of cover crops and pesticide harm reduction, among other topics.
Download PDF: Cover Cropping for Pollinators and Beneficial Insects (727KB)
Author: The Xerces Society Date: 2016
Native wildflowers are the backbone of pollinator habitat on the farm. Field borders, filter strips, pastures, hedgerows, and other places where wildflowers (and grasses!) grow also provide us with natural pest control by sustaining predators of crop pests. Additionally, these plants help filter runoff from fields, and protect soil from erosion. Despite the benefits that native wildflowers and grasses provide, the cost of seed can be daunting. Fortunately, if you have native plant areas already established, they can provide you with a readily available source for additional seed.
While harvesting seed from existing wildflowers around the farm may not yield huge volumes, it can provide you with the raw material to gradually create more habitat on the farm. By collecting seed from plants already growing on your land, you are also focusing your efforts on species that are known to perform well on your soils. In this document we outline the basic steps of collecting native plant seed using readily available, non-specialized equipment. While our focus is primarily on wildflowers, many of these same techniques can be useful for collecting native grasses as well as seeds from trees and shrubs.
Download PDF: Collecting and Using Your Own Wildflower Seed to Expand Pollinator Habitat on Farms (2MB)
Author: The Xerces Society Date: 2015
To boost healthy populations of both wild resident bees and managed pollinators, the single most effective action you can take is to plant native wild flower habitat. This tangible course of action can be accomplished by anyone at any scale. The process behind establishing a wild flower-rich pollinator planting from seed consists of five basic steps:
The steps outlined in this document are applicable to plantings that range in size from a small backyard garden up to areas around an acre.
Download PDF: Establishing Pollinator Meadows From Seed (2MB)
Author: The Xerces Society Date: 2015
The purpose of these guidelines is to provide information about native bees and their habitat requirements so that farmers can manage the land around their fields to provide the greatest advantage for these crop pollinators. These guidelines will help growers and conservationists:
Making small changes to increase the number of native pollinators on a farm does not require a lot of work. Subtle changes in farm practices can involve identifying and protecting nesting sites and forage, choosing cover crop species that provide abundant pollen and nectar, allowing crops to go to flower before plowing them under, or changing how pesticides are applied in order to have the least negative impact on bees.
Download PDF: Farming For Bees: Guidelines for Providing Native Bee Habitat on Farms (3MB)
Author: Monarch Joint Venture Date: unknown
Milkweed plants (family Asclepiadaceae) are the only food source for monarch butter y caterpillars. However, milkweed has severely declined in North America due to drastic changes in land use or management, like agriculture and development. Milkweed losses and other stressors are associated with declines in migratory monarch butterflies over the past 20 years [1, 6, 7]. To compensate for the loss of milkweed, gardeners across North America are helping monarchs by planting native species of milkweeds, and by keeping milkweeds safe from pesticides.
Download PDF: Why Grow and Sell Native Milkweed? (839KB)
Author: The Xerces Society Date: 2012
Five species of milkweed are native to Oregon. This guide includes profiles of the four most common species, all of which are used as a larval host plant by the monarch butterfly.
Asclepias cordifolia (purple milkweed, heartleaf milkweed)
Asclepias cryptoceras ssp. davisii (Davis’ milkweed)
Asclepias fascicularis (narrow-leaved milkweed)
Asclepias speciosa (showy milkweed)
A profile of each of these species includes descriptions of flowers, leaves, and seed pods, accompanied by photos and distribution maps. Supporting these profiles is a simple guide to identifying milkweeds based on their distinctive flowers and fruits.
Download PDF: A Guide to the Native Milkweeds of Oregon (836 KB)
Author: The Xerces Society Date: 2014
The information in Milkweeds: A Conservation Practitioner’s Guide is gathered from interviews with native plant nurseries and seed producers, gained firsthand through Project Milkweed, and synthesized from scientific literature. It provides conservation professionals with information about optimizing milkweed seed production methods, offers guidance on incorporating milkweeds into restoration and revegetation efforts, and highlights milkweeds’ unique characteristics and value to wildlife. Native seed producers, restoration practitioners, land managers, monarch conservationists, gardeners, and landowners will all find this guide valuable.
Download (PDF): Milkweeds: a Conservation Practitioner’s Guide (6MB)