News Finding: "The choice of crops we produce or the type of crops we eat has a much larger impact on overall insecticide use than do landscape characteristics such as crop diversity or cropland extent," Noack said.
Paper Finding: In highly simplified agricultural regions that are dominated by one or a couple of crops, county-level cropland may serve as an appropriate metric for intensification.
News Context: Their research showed that while crop diversity reduced insecticide use, its impact was small in comparison to the differences in insecticide use between different crops. "The choice of crops we produce or the type of crops we eat has a much larger impact on overall insecticide use than do landscape characteristics such as crop diversity or cropland extent," Noack said. As surrounding crop diversity increased, insecticide use fell by nearly 8 kilograms per hectare.
Paper Context: and is equivocal overall . In highly simplified agricultural regions that are dominated by one or a couple of crops, county-level cropland may serve as an appropriate metric for intensification. Further, cropland extent may act on both local (field size) and landscape (landscape composition) scales.