Edaphos offers agronomy services on all types of farms in all situations. Their philosophy is to improve soil and plant health, whilst harnessing the soils stored resources to their full potential to achieve a healthy, well balanced system.
Increasing biocontrol on farms by raising awareness of the beneficial insect community could lead to reduced pesticide use, costs and better support our own environment. In this blog we will be focusing on Spiders (which are arachnids and not an insect but certainly a most valued beneficial predator) through conservation biocontrol!
Before going into Spiders in detail, it is important to understand that to enable conservation biocontrol it is a direct focus on increasing the numbers and diversity of naturally occurring beneficial insects that are already within the area. To create a successful biocontrol through conservation alongside farming, predators and parasitoids need to thrive more so than in smaller production systems due to the fact that fields are subject to a whole host of management from us through mainly pesticide use, tillage, baling, mowing of margins and the management of field borders. Because a lot of fields are subject to the above, they don’t provide enough shelter, forage and overwintering habitat for many of our beneficial insects that would provide us with the wonderful benefits of pest control in crop and as a knock on effect, this also has an impact on other wildlife, pollinators and birds that are in a declining population.
The focus of conservation biocontrol is to focus on creating the necessary food and shelter and any other needs that has been proven to increasing numbers of beneficial insects. Once these are in place the biocontrol system will continue to develop and persist year on year as natures cycle of life and natural balance take place.
Back onto the Spiders! Hopefully over the winter and into the spring, many of you will have experienced spiders while walking crops, alongside margins or noticed a glint of an expanse of webs across the crop that is most noticeable at dawn and dusk which is a great sign and start to creating your biocontrol community.
Spiders are often the most abundant predator in agriculture although they play good and bad roles towards our purpose. Spiders are generalist predators which may feed indiscriminately on other insects and as you might expect for certain species their webs can cause chaos to any insects that fly.
Spider life cycles vary a lot between Arachne species, from species that have one generation per year and live for 2-3 years to those that are very short lived and have multiple generations per year. Spiders may lay eggs within silken nests in the soil, grass clumps, plant debris, under bark or inside hollow stalks of vegetation which these are the areas the adults also overwinter in as well.
For web-spinning species, vegetation as crops and weeds or a soil surface with adequate trash to create a diverse architecture provides a suitable habitat and hunting ground to spin webs. Leaving trash on a more cloddy surface with straw still standing helps retain web-spinning spiders in the autumn and the presence of the diverse architecture from the crop and arable weeds provides a suitable hunting ground in the spring and summer. Some web spinning spiders are capable of producing a long thread in which they can disperse themselves over long distances in a process called ballooning where they are carried in the wind. Web Spinning Spiders can offer us the first and one of the most effective controls against aphids in the autumn by covering whole fields in their threads from ballooning into and across the field. When they are present, you can easily see how and why they are so effective at aphid control and not many pests would get through their hunting grounds.
For the hunting spiders such as Wolf Spiders and Jumping Spiders, they don’t rely on creating a hunting ground with their webs and will persist generally along field margins, hedgerows and plant foliage to hunt on the ground and will travel 50 metres into the field from these areas.
It is important to know that the more mobile species of Spider will only settle in locations with sufficient levels of prey and as such will show responses to prey densities. If you do not have the diversity or insect populations spiders will not be abundant.
To encourage the establishment of spiders you will want to integrate field margins as hedgerows, grass and pollinator strips into the field. Splitting fields with beetle banks or wildflower strips can help massively to improve coverage of these species into the field. Leaving crop residue and trash on the surface and leaving clods within the field will also give the spiders a diversity to their habitat and enable them to hunt effectively. Cover crops can also help to provide an ideal autumn habitat as a hunting ground and nesting site.
If you are interested in integrating Mid-Tier schemes for helping to promote Spiders and their necessary habitats and food sources the following would be useful to look into and integrate into the farm: Nectar Flower Mix (AB1 – £511/ha), Beetle Banks (AB3 – 573/ha), Flower Rich Margin and Plots (AB8 – £539/ha), Unharvested Cereal Headland (AB10 – £640/ha), Two Year Sown Legume Fallow (AB15 – £522), Autumn Sown Bumblebird Mix (AB16 – £550/ha), 4-6m Buffer Strips on cultivated land (SW1 – £353), In-field Grass Strips (SW3 – £557/ha), Winter Cover Crops (SW6 – £114/ha) and Woodland Edges on Arable Land (WD3 – £323/ha).
Spiders are highly vulnerable to pyrethroid insecticides and through good practice and management such as not spraying all fields with insecticide in one year and leaving some untreated, adhering to spray buffer zones and not spraying insecticides close to margins we should be able to minimise the risk to our populations of beneficials.
The Soilmentor GPS mapping feature allows you to save the exact locations of where you are doing your soil tests in each field. That way you can very easily come back year after year to the same spot and monitor changes in soil health. We have spoken to many different soil scientists and advisors and we feel that the best way to monitor soil health on your farm is to select specific sample sites and observe trends/changes in soil over time at each site.
So the need was identified and the SSA formed a partnership of high profile government, environment, farming and NGO allies to give weight to the cause and generate urgent, immediate action. Two years later, we have established close working relationships with DEFRA, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the Environment Agency and the emerging Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS) team. We have also inputted in to the new Agriculture and Environment Bills, the 25 Year Plan for the Environment, the new regulatory framework for farmers, the consultation on the future of Welsh farming and more. Success has been based on a slow but steady and reliable ongoing dialogue, a persistent chipping away at the rock-face of government, an endless search for the killer questions necessary to achieve our goals and, above all, – a non-partisan, relationship-based approach.
natural environment, to water and air quality, to public health. It supplies medicines, stores carbon, prevents floods, helps regulate the earth’s temperature. It provides countless services which, if wearing a natural capital hat, have direct consequences for government spending and the Treasury. Its security is relevant to Defra, Natural England, the Environment Agency, BEIS, the Treasury, the Natural Capital Committee and more. Soil has been referred to by government as ‘the golden thread that runs through everything’ and features significantly in countless reports published by a multitude of agencies and departments. And yet the decision-making that encompasses it is fragmented. Building a joined-up strategy with soil health at its heart has therefore been a Herculean task, and we believe partnership working has been key to clarifying and supporting the flow of interdepartmental thinking. We’ve tackled this particular challenge by building ever stronger non-denominational relationships across the alliance, simultaneously working within departments to identify where their unique problems lie and help to deliver their own goals – whilst keeping in mind and working towards the wider context of interlocking aims and solutions.
The problem of fragmentation does not lie only within government. The SSA were not the first to identify or begin working to resolve the national soils crisis – there are a myriad of individuals, organisations and practical projects out there on a local and regional scale attempting to do just that. Breaking down silos, building relationships and attempting to unite with common leadership and purpose therefore quickly became a core approach of the SSA, in order to amplify the work of positive soils initiatives on the ground and present a united front to government. This partnership working also enabled us to fully understand the complexity of the challenge and the unique issues of the different stakeholders, as we engaged in conversations with as broad a representative of the soils community as possible. Critically listening, collating opinion and feeding back to government has become a key task of the SSA. We have convened meetings to include the widest possible spectrum of stakeholders, in part to help identify where conflicts lie and how to resolve these, building bridges and brokering to establish a level of basic agreement from which we can push forward to sustainable soils. We have not shied away from allowing like-minded and conflicting agendas to share the same space, and interesting outcomes have emerged as a result.
So where are we now? Under Gove, soil is at least now a part of government policy-making, which it hasn’t been before. There are encouraging references in the Agriculture and Environment Bills, and the 25 Year Environment Plan. But of course ministers are experts at saying the right thing, and we have yet to see concrete action on the issue. Soil has still not gained equivalent recognition and commitment as our other natural assets, water and air. We’re mindful of the need to pin down legislation, particularly at this time of tumultuous change and policy development within UK government. The temporary nature of ministerial positions and short lifespan of government can undermine progress and momentum at the best of times, so we’re working hard to firm up government commitments and ensure these are enshrined in new policy.
And we’re not afraid of change. Our fundamental aims remain the same, but within this framework we are constantly evolving, re-evaluating, responding to news, events, policies and ministerial attitudes, capitalising on new information and relationships that come our way. We aim to be agile, and we’re all too aware we may need to regroup around the change of leadership. These are interesting times, and there isn’t a blueprint for what we are attempting to achieve. But this makes it all the more important. We’re confident that strides can be made and we have hope for a step-change in soil health that will render our land, and all that stems from it, sustainable within one generation.
Earthworms are a key indicator that your soil is alive and has good soil organic matter content. They move nutrients around the soil profile, playing a vital role in feeding your plants, and open up the soil structure allowing water and air into the soil. Their sticky mucus also helps to build good soil structure.
How well your soil structure holds together in water shows you how it withstands heavy rainfall, and what its capacity for storing water and nutrients is like. Good soil structure is an indicator that you have adequate soil organic matter that supports the life in your soil.
Infiltration rates clearly show how ready your soil is to soak up water. If the soil structure is open with plenty of air spaces the water will easily move down into the soil profile until the air spaces are full with water. Nutrients also move with water into the soil profile.