As Class XX of the Oklahoma Ag Leadership continues to travel Israel, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, had the chance to visit with Beni Gavrieli, within the communal Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, talking about biological control and farming in the community.
Bio Tour, located on Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, offers a unique insight into conventional and organic farming, communal lifestyle and innovation in agriculture through biological control.
One company within the community, BioBee Biological Systems, provides a service to farmers, mainly in greenhouses, but also in open fields and orchards where they provide bumblebees they raise for pollination and natural enemies for insect pests.
While the honeybee is viewed as a popular natural pollinator, Gavrieli said the company uses bumblebees instead for pollination.
“A honeybee, first of all, is a very aggressive animal, so to putting it in a greenhouse where people work is not conducive as far as safety for the people who work there,” Gavrieli said.
If it is cold, rainy or cloudy, Gavrieli said a honeybee will not go out and pollinate because it already produces honey to eat.
“A bumblebee, on the other hand, does not produce honey, so it has to go out every day in order to collect food for the hive,” Gavrieli said.
Because the bumblebee is a much less aggressive animal and can only sting a number of times, Gavrieli said if the bee becomes aggravated, it will only sting a few times at most before it goes somewhere else. A honeybee, on the other hand, Gavrieli said, stings one time and dies.
“If you are using a honeybee in a greenhouse, and you do something to aggravate some of the bees, you have lost your pollinators,” Gavrieli said.
Where there once was nothing, Gavrieli said through community working together, the Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, now holds crops, trees, buildings, date plantations, and more.
“The only way to do that is if everyone has a common ideology and a common goal,” Gavrieli said.
Gavrieli also talked about the Barn Owl Housing Project, which offers a natural solution to rodent population control.
“The owl, for sure, is an instrument of peace, and every owl that is born in the area gets an identification bracelet,” Gavrieli said. “That identification bracelet has a number on it. It is all written down, it goes into a common database.”
As the owl does not understand international borders, Gavrieli talked about how the owl has been a source of communication between different countries and cultures because everyone wants a better life and safer agriculture.
“If we can learn from one another and work together, it is the way to do it,” Gavrieli said.
An owl family controls all kinds of rodents in the fields efficiently, Gavrieli said, and it is cost-efficient because all they need is nesting boxes. Because owls hunt at night, Gavrieli said they also use small hawks to hunt during the day.
To learn more about the Oklahoma Ag Leadership Program, click here.
