US FARMERS’ eager pursuit of biofuels earlier this year sent food prices skyrocketing, and it could now spell trouble for soybeans.
Subsidies for bioethanol led US farmers to plant nearly a fifth more maize in 2007 than in 2006.It now seems the drop in crop diversity could deter insects that eat the soybean’s aphid nemesis.
Douglas Landis and colleagues at Michigan State University at East Lansing measured numbers of soybean aphids at 23 sites with differing plant diversity over two years. They found that the more maize dominated the landscape, the less impact predators such as ladybirds had on soybean…
