Service Zoos

The Service zoos are designed with the potential to benefit useful animals in apple farming for increased crop yields, serve as a haven for biodiversity in cultivated landscapes and be a meeting place for people and biodiversity.
The project will establish Service zoos at four of Skånes apple farms to counteract the decline in biodiversity and increase the diversity of useful animals in the zoo.

In Sweden, apples are grown according to the principles of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), which focuses on preventing pest problems through monitoring and implementing reactive measures when really needed.

Further development

A further development of the IPM principles, especially for insect-pollinated crops such as apples, is IPPM (Integrated Pest and Pollinator Management), where pollination needs and pollinator health are taken into account when choosing a plant protection strategy and other cultivation measures. Within both IPM and IPPM, there is a great need for ecological knowledge to know which measures affect beneficial animals, as natural enemies of pests and pollinators of crops.

To translate such knowledge into applicable measures in commercial and recreational cultivation, evidence-based advice is needed. Horticulture is an area with relatively few advisors and little research, which means that the evidence base is limited.

Evaluation

We evaluate how the beneficial animal parks are used and also how they affect adjacent apple orchards, through proven methods (for example, traps for pests and solitary bee hives) and new methods (for example, bee health cards and sand piles for solitary bees). Experiences at the facility and the outcome of the evaluations are used to develop methods for advising through the various progression phases of the livestock park. The project benefits from several other ongoing projects and benefits parts of these through synergies.