LOW-INPUT FARMING PRACTICES AND SEMI-NATURAL HABITATS SUPPORT BETTER PEST CONTROL IN CEREAL FIELDS THROUGH HIGHER ABUNDANCE OF NATURAL ENEMIES

摘要

At European scale Hungary is among the countries where agricultural practices are less intensive. However, the effects of low-input practices on the farmland biodiversity and ecosystem services are sparsely known (Kovacs-Hostyanszki el al. 2013). In order to move toward a sustainable agriculture there is a demand to explore the possible role and contribution of beneficial diversity (ecosystem services) to agricultural production. The aim of the Liberation FP7 project was to achieve such ecological intensification by enhanced invertebrate communities and related ecosystem services through reduced level of management intensity and adjoining to newly established semi-natural habitats. To quantify the impacts of ecological intensification on winter-wheat production in fields adjoining to newly established semi-natural habitats, we tested how pest organisms and their natural enemies were affected by local field management such as experimentally manipulated fertilizer use and by the landscape propertiesin Hungary.