Increasing plant diversity with border crops reduces insecticide use and increases crop yield in urban agriculture

Nian-Feng Wan; You-Ming Cai; Yan-Jun Shen; Xiang-Yun Ji; Xiang-Wen Wu; Xiang-Rong Zheng; Wei Cheng; Jun Li; Yao-Pei Jiang; Xin Chen; Jacob Weiner; Jie-Xian Jiang; Ming Nie; Rui-Ting Ju; Tao Yuan; Jian-Jun Tang; Wei-Dong Tian; Hao Zhang; Bo Li

doi:10.7554/eLife.35103

Increasing plant diversity with border crops reduces insecticide use and increases crop yield in urban agriculture

Nian-Feng Wan, You-Ming Cai, Yan-Jun Shen, Xiang-Yun Ji, Xiang-Wen Wu, Xiang-Rong Zheng, Wei Cheng, Jun Li, Yao-Pei Jiang, Xin Chen, Jacob Weiner, Jie-Xian Jiang, Ming Nie, Rui-Ting Ju, Tao Yuan, Jian-Jun Tang, Wei-Dong Tian, Hao Zhang, Bo Li

Section for Organismal Biology

20 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

Urban agriculture is making an increasing contribution to food security in large cities around the world. The potential contribution of biodiversity to ecological intensification in urban agricultural systems has not been investigated. We present monitoring data collected from rice fields in 34 community farms in mega-urban Shanghai, China, from 2001 to 2015, and show that the presence of a border crop of soybeans and neighboring crops (maize, eggplant and Chinese cabbage), both without weed control, increased invertebrate predator abundance, decreased the abundance of pests and dependence on insecticides, and increased grain yield and economic profits. Two 2 year randomized experiments with the low and high diversity practices in the same locations confirmed these results. Our study shows that diversifying farming practices can make an important contribution to ecological intensification and the sustainable use of associated ecosystem services in an urban ecosystem.

Original language	English
Article number	e35103
Journal	eLife
Volume	7
Number of pages	21
ISSN	2050-084X
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.35103
Publication status	Published - 24 May 2018

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Increasing plant diversity with border crops reduces insecticide use and increases crop yield in urban agricultureFinal published version, 2.67 MB

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Wan, N.-F., Cai, Y.-M., Shen, Y.-J., Ji, X.-Y., Wu, X.-W., Zheng, X.-R., Cheng, W., Li, J., Jiang, Y.-P., Chen, X., Weiner, J., Jiang, J.-X., Nie, M., Ju, R.-T., Yuan, T., Tang, J.-J., Tian, W.-D., Zhang, H., & Li, B. (2018). Increasing plant diversity with border crops reduces insecticide use and increases crop yield in urban agriculture. eLife, 7, Article e35103. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.35103

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title = "Increasing plant diversity with border crops reduces insecticide use and increases crop yield in urban agriculture",

abstract = "Urban agriculture is making an increasing contribution to food security in large cities around the world. The potential contribution of biodiversity to ecological intensification in urban agricultural systems has not been investigated. We present monitoring data collected from rice fields in 34 community farms in mega-urban Shanghai, China, from 2001 to 2015, and show that the presence of a border crop of soybeans and neighboring crops (maize, eggplant and Chinese cabbage), both without weed control, increased invertebrate predator abundance, decreased the abundance of pests and dependence on insecticides, and increased grain yield and economic profits. Two 2 year randomized experiments with the low and high diversity practices in the same locations confirmed these results. Our study shows that diversifying farming practices can make an important contribution to ecological intensification and the sustainable use of associated ecosystem services in an urban ecosystem.",

author = "Nian-Feng Wan and You-Ming Cai and Yan-Jun Shen and Xiang-Yun Ji and Xiang-Wen Wu and Xiang-Rong Zheng and Wei Cheng and Jun Li and Yao-Pei Jiang and Xin Chen and Jacob Weiner and Jie-Xian Jiang and Ming Nie and Rui-Ting Ju and Tao Yuan and Jian-Jun Tang and Wei-Dong Tian and Hao Zhang and Bo Li",

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T1 - Increasing plant diversity with border crops reduces insecticide use and increases crop yield in urban agriculture

AU - Wan, Nian-Feng

AU - Cai, You-Ming

AU - Shen, Yan-Jun

AU - Ji, Xiang-Yun

AU - Wu, Xiang-Wen

AU - Zheng, Xiang-Rong

AU - Cheng, Wei

AU - Li, Jun

AU - Jiang, Yao-Pei

AU - Chen, Xin

AU - Weiner, Jacob

AU - Jiang, Jie-Xian

AU - Nie, Ming

AU - Ju, Rui-Ting

AU - Yuan, Tao

AU - Tang, Jian-Jun

AU - Tian, Wei-Dong

AU - Zhang, Hao

AU - Li, Bo

PY - 2018/5/24

Y1 - 2018/5/24

N2 - Urban agriculture is making an increasing contribution to food security in large cities around the world. The potential contribution of biodiversity to ecological intensification in urban agricultural systems has not been investigated. We present monitoring data collected from rice fields in 34 community farms in mega-urban Shanghai, China, from 2001 to 2015, and show that the presence of a border crop of soybeans and neighboring crops (maize, eggplant and Chinese cabbage), both without weed control, increased invertebrate predator abundance, decreased the abundance of pests and dependence on insecticides, and increased grain yield and economic profits. Two 2 year randomized experiments with the low and high diversity practices in the same locations confirmed these results. Our study shows that diversifying farming practices can make an important contribution to ecological intensification and the sustainable use of associated ecosystem services in an urban ecosystem.

AB - Urban agriculture is making an increasing contribution to food security in large cities around the world. The potential contribution of biodiversity to ecological intensification in urban agricultural systems has not been investigated. We present monitoring data collected from rice fields in 34 community farms in mega-urban Shanghai, China, from 2001 to 2015, and show that the presence of a border crop of soybeans and neighboring crops (maize, eggplant and Chinese cabbage), both without weed control, increased invertebrate predator abundance, decreased the abundance of pests and dependence on insecticides, and increased grain yield and economic profits. Two 2 year randomized experiments with the low and high diversity practices in the same locations confirmed these results. Our study shows that diversifying farming practices can make an important contribution to ecological intensification and the sustainable use of associated ecosystem services in an urban ecosystem.

U2 - 10.7554/eLife.35103

DO - 10.7554/eLife.35103

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 29792597

SN - 2050-084X

VL - 7

JO - eLife

JF - eLife

M1 - e35103

ER -

Increasing plant diversity with border crops reduces insecticide use and increases crop yield in urban agriculture

Abstract

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