Companion planting guide › Flowering buckwheat as an insectary strip

Flowering buckwheat as an insectary strip: does it work?

Promising Some peer-reviewed or extension evidence, but limited, conditional or mixed.

Buckwheat flowers attract and feed many natural enemies, but proof that this lowers pest damage is inconsistent.

1. Berndt L.A. et al. (2002). Effects of buckwheat flowers on leafroller parasitoids in a New Zealand vineyard. Agricultural and Forest Entomology.
2. Cornell Cooperative Extension. Investigating the Use of Buckwheat Strips (extension report).

Mechanism

Nectar for parasitic wasps and predators.

What the research found

• In a New Zealand vineyard, buckwheat flowers attracted parasitoids, but parasitism of the pest did not increase (Berndt et al. 2002).
• A Cornell extension trial found predators attracted to potato rows near buckwheat, with effects limited to about 4–6 rows.

Caveats

Effects are crop- and species-specific and short-range.