A roomful of people at the largest nursery industry trade show west of Texas listened as an Oregon State University Extension Service entomologist discussed the top 10 native plants to Oregon that are most popular for pollinators.
The session at the 49th Farwest Show featured Gail Langellotto, a professor in OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences. Langellotto presented the results of a three-year research project that showed native plants appear to be most attractive to native pollinators, bees in particular.
In addition to Langellotto, four Extension faculty and one research assistant gave presentations at the Farwest Show, which annually draws an estimated 5,000 attendees to the Oregon Convention Center and nursery tours. Oregon’s greenhouse and nursery industry was the state’s most-valued agricultural commodity in 2020, with a value of nearly $1.2 billion, according to the Oregon Department of Agriculture.
In her talk, Langellotto, who is the statewide coordinator of the OSU Extension Master Gardener program, said the study focused on which plants got the most pollinator visits and the most diverse number of pollinators.
Read the complete article at: extension.oregonstate.edu