Use of flowers strips to attract pollinators' insects and natural enemies in tomato crop

The goal of this research was to analyze the effect of the flower’s strips and the proximity of the corn field on the environmental services of regulation by insects (pollination and biological control) in tomato crop (Solanum lycopersicum). The study was fulfilled with commercial tomato (6.200 m²) in the Brazilian Cerrado. The experimental outline was completely randomized with 15 plots of 5 x 4 meters, constructed by 16 tomato plants, with two treatments 1) tomato without attractive flowers strips (control); 2) tomato with attractive flowers strips of cilantro and sorghum. The cilantro flowered before the sorghum and both species were not flowering simultaneously. The sampling of pollinator insects and natural enemies was performed using the trap-type Bee bowls and active collection. The tomato production was verified by the weight of the fruits of 8 plants/ plot. The data were analyzed by the t test for the comparison of diversity and the abundance of insects between treatments. The tomato production was analyzed by multiple regression to verify the effects of treatments (x1), diversity of insects (x2) and the interaction between them (x1: x2). As a result, the abundance of natural enemies was higher with attractive stripes of cilantro flowers than the control (p = 0.03). The richness of pollinator insects was significantly higher in tomatoes with flowers strips of sorghum than the control (p = 0.05). The effect of mix of flowers strips intercropped (cilantro + sorghum) increased three times the abundance of the total of natural enemies in the tomatoes with the flower’s strips compared with the tomatoes without the strips (p=0.04). Our results clearly show that the use of attractive flower strips of the mix of cilantro and sorghum in interleaved periods with tomatoes contributes to the permanence of the services provided by insects to the crop field.