Conservation Biological Control and Pest Performance in Lawn Turf: Does Mowing Height Matter?

摘要: With >80 million United States households engaged in lawn and gardening activities, increasing sustainability of care is important. Mowing height an easily manipulated aspect management. We tested the hypothesis that elevated mowing tall fescue grass promotes a larger, more diverse community arthropod natural enemies which turn provides stronger biological control services, corollary doing so also renders turf itself less suitable for growth insect pests. Turf-type was mowed low (6.4 cm) or high (10.2 cm) two growing seasons, enemy populations were assessed by vacuum sampling, pitfall traps, ant baits, predation parasitism evaluated with sentinel prey caterpillars, grubs, eggs. In addition, foliage-feeding caterpillars root-feeding scarab grubs confined to evaluate their performance. Although some predatory groups (e.g., rove beetles spiders) abundant high-mowed grass, rates uniformly because ants, dominant predators, similarly regardless height. Lower canopy temperatures associated slower grass-feeding caterpillars. Higher reduces fuel consumption yard waste, deep, robust root system need water chemical inputs. this study did not measurably increase already-high levels predation, it suggest additional ways through bottom-up effects on pest might interact facilitate conservation control.