Microsegregation in Maize Cropping—a Chance to Improve Farmland Biodiversity

Abstract

The need to preserve and enhance biodiversity in agricultural landscapes is widely accepted. In the case of maize, there is a chance to combine production and biodiversity in the same field by microsegregation: wildflowers are sown between the future maize rows after harvest of the last main crop. These wildflower strips provide flowers and vegetation structure within fields and favour biodiversity without losing production area. The system is based on reliable cropping techniques such as strip-till, underground fertilization and band spraying, allowing the poor habitat quality of conventional maize caused by late soil tillage and lack of vegetation structure to be overcome. Field trials at two sites in Germany were conducted, testing the agricultural feasibility, ecological efficiency and yield impacts. The results show the successful establishment of the wildflower strips between the maize rows. Flowering diversity was up to eight times higher than in conventional maize crop stands. Positive implications for pollinators and ground beetles could be proved. The habitat quality for the skylark could be improved by a factor of 2–3, to nearly normal reproduction of the population. A yield reduction of at least 30% was observed. Further investigations will address this yield gap. Furthermore, the management of spontaneous weeds needs further improvement.