PFI-RP: Crop Seed Shaped Pellets for Planting Multi-Species Conservation Habitats with Standard Planting Equipment

This Partnerships for Innovation - Research Partnerships (PFI-RP) project develops an affordable method for farmers to grow non-crop plants that nurture the essential insects (such as butterflies, bees, and ladybugs) required for efficient food production. Standard planting equipment is established for planting a small range of crop seeds (e.g., corn, soy, alfalfa, etc.) but not the wider set of plant species that essential insects require. The solution develops pellets that contain the diverse plants needed to support the essential insects and are the size and shape of crop seeds so they can be planted with the standard planting equipment farmers already use. This technology will allow farmers benefit from the additional ecological services like pollination and pest suppression these habitats facilitate. Consumers will benefit from the lower food prices that enhanced ecological services will allow. This project will develop an efficient, flexible mechanism for inserting tailored, non-crop diversity into cropping systems. The initial focus of the technology is the restoration of habitat for the monarch butterfly. This project will develop a multi-seed pellet to plant non-crop plants such as milkweeds and coneflowers into agroecosystems to attract beneficial insects as a shift in weed management has precipitated a rapid decline in those plant and the beneficial birds and insects that depend on them. To reach the goal of habitat restoration necessary for increased food crop yields, the team will (1) select the optimal set of species to incorporate, (2) determine optimal methods for conditioning and breaking dormancy, (3) develop efficient methods to produce the multi-seed pellets, and (4) test the technology in large-scale field tests. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.