For Eric Morgan, embracing biodiversity on the farm started about 15 years ago with the introduction of beneficial habitat plantings at Braga Fresh Farm. Eric is the Vice President of Environmental Science and Resources at Braga Fresh and knew early on that natural enemy insects were a necessity in managing pests without conventional pesticides.

Braga Fresh is a large, vertically integrated, primarily organic grower with operations in the Salinas Valley and Imperial Valley. One of the primary concerns they had in organic production was no ability to put their red lettuce aphids in check. No organic sprays worked well to take care of lettuce aphids, so they turned to natural enemies to help reduce populations.

Syrphid fly larvae can eat up to 100 aphids a day!

Braga Fresh does this by incorporating flowering insectary plants like dill, cilantro and alyssum both at the field edges and within the field. The flowers are a food source for adult beneficial insects like syrphid flies that they want to attract and keep around to lay eggs. Syrphid fly larvae can eat up to 100 aphids a day!

Growers may be hesitant to use part of their land as habitat, but incorporating insectary plants doesn’t mean you need to take much land out of production. “Usually, we're only giving up a 10th of an acre adjacent to a road,” says Eric. Salinas Valley growers also commonly transplant a large amount of their crops using an automated machine process. But the automation isn’t perfect and 1-5% of the time there's going to be a skip. At Braga Fresh, instead of the workers going behind the transplant crew and plugging in a lettuce or broccoli plant, they plug in dill or cilantro or sweet alyssum. Additionally, if they have any soil on the farm that's not desirable or doesn't reliably grow a good crop, they plant flowers there instead.

"I've been able to answer a lot of questions that I've had for my entire career by observing biological systems."

Eric says the process of farming with nature has been humbling. Having been in the industry a long time, he thought he had all the answers. “And then come to find out that I was really ignorant about the biological process in place. I've been able to answer a lot of questions that I've had for my entire career by observing biological systems and drawing conclusions from that; and then trying to find some level of translation to our production.” Eric enjoys discovering solutions. “I think discovery is what's making this entire process exciting. And I think it's what's exciting our entire team.”

Learn more about Braga Fresh Farm's use of insectary plants and hear from USDA researcher Eric Brennan about supporting syrphid flies in the video below: