Birds And Bats Provide Natural Pest Control To Vineyards

There are ways to grow food crops without poisoning the soil and landscape with chemical pesticides — by relying on the help of birds and bats!

© by GrrlScientist for Forbes | LinkTr.ee

Vineyards and village church in Aszofoe at Lake Balaton, Hungary. (getty)

Intensive agriculture increases food production, but it also damages land through habitat loss, deforestation, and soil degradation. As farmers work to meet the needs of a rapidly growing — and hungry — human population, natural ecosystems such as forests and grasslands are converted into agricultural production and farmland, dramatically reducing biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Vineyards — although not essential to feeding hungry humans — are economically and culturally important farmlands that are under threat from the attentions of numerous pests and diseases. Yet only a small number of vineyards are managed using sustainable practices. Further, climate change is enhancing the threat of arthropod pests and diseases, thanks to the increase in unusual weather patterns.

Some vineyards respond to these threats by using more chemical pesticides to keep these pests under control. But outside of breeding pesticide-resistant arthropod pests, these methods don’t work well in the long run and, in fact, these chemicals end up accumulating in the landscape and poisoning more than just wildlife…