Cool Season Pollinator Mix: 15+ Flowers for Beneficial Insects

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0:05 All right, so this is our cool season pollinator mix. So, this particular test plot was planted April 15th. We're now middle of June, so right at 2 months of growth. And as the name suggests, cool season pollinator, the goal of this mix is to have just as much flowering activity as we can. So, cool season, so

0:24 It's a mix of cool season annuals, so things that are frost tolerant, but that won't necessarily overwinter here in Nebraska and farther north. Being planted April 15th, this mix had to tolerate some light frosts, kind of some of those late season cold spells that we go through, and it doesn't impact.

0:41 These species at all. So there's a lot of diversity in this mix. A lot of legumes that flower. We've got quite a few brassicas, like the mustards and the radishes, and then a lot of broadleaves. So there is a lot of diversity packed into this mix. You can plant it all at the same time, and then basically what we end up with is like

0:58 A succession of flowers. Right out of the gate, the earliest stuff to flower was probably like the mustards and then the radishes early on. Now, we have the phacelia that's kind of wrapping up its flowering. The sunflower is just kind of starting to flower. The flax has been going most of the whole time. There's clovers down in the.

1:16 Canopy. And so, this is just going to, you know, for your beneficial insects, this is just going to keep on offering something to them, you know, into the summer really well. So one ingredient in the mix is oats. Keith, why might we include oats in a pollinator?

1:31 Well, you know, oats—it's not going to flower, you know, like a mustard or the phacelia, but we want it for several reasons. When we plant these diverse mixes, we want to accomplish multiple benefits. So, obviously, we're benefiting the beneficial insects, your pollinators, honeybees, things like that here. But we also want—

1:51 To control weeds. We want to build soil organic matter. We want to have kind of the big buffet for the soil biology. So, the oats is helping with that. It's a fibrous root system, you know, it's a grass that's going to fit really well here. And so, we're using it to add diversity to this mix, but oats can still bring some benefit to these.

2:30 And mention that not all benefits for the pollinators and the beneficial insects are coming just from the blossoms like you see on this mustard or the phacelia. Now, this sunflower is getting ready to bloom, and in fact, there are a couple of them that are in here blooming, but sunflower is one plant that has what we call.

2:50 Extrafloral nectaries. And what that is is a little nectary, and it's generally where the leaf attaches to the stalk. And you can't really see it, but there's a small amounts of nectar that are being put out right here at this joint. And so, you'll sometimes see your beneficial insects, they will be pulling nectar off of these as well as

3:15 Off of the flowers. And there's multiple plants that can do that. It's typically some of your broadleaf plants that do it best. Sunflowers are a really good one. Cowpeas and sunn hemp are ones in the warm season pollinator that would do it. But we like to include things in there like that as well. And so, again, just because it's

3:33 Not blooming doesn't mean it's not providing a benefit for the insects. So, ideally, what we would want to see is we would want to see small strips of this cool season pollinator, maybe planted around the border of your field or some waste areas, because you don't need the whole field to provide this insectary strip habitat for the insects.

3:55 And then ideally next to it, we would be planting our warm season mix, you know, around May 15th or something, and then you get the staggered benefit as this is going downhill, your warm season pollinator is going uphill, and you've got season-long habitat for your beneficial insects.