IT looks like any other paddock of cabbages.
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But examine the crop beside the Macquarie River a little closer and there is a significant difference: a small strip of flowering plants that is having a big impact.
The paddock, at White Rock, on Bathurst's outskirts, is one of a number of trial sites around the country where researchers are looking at how best to attract beneficial insects to vegetable crops to provide an alternative to using pesticides.
"There's a range of pests, like aphids and caterpillar pests, such as diamondback moth, that can really cause devastation to crops," said Geoff Gurr, Professor of Applied Ecology at Charles Sturt University Orange.
"And that's a hassle because farmers, at the moment, are heavily dependent on chemical pesticides to control these pests and, unfortunately, these have been used so frequently over the years that the pests have developed resistance to the pesticides.
"So not only do we not much like using them [the pesticides] because of the well-known hazards, but also they're failing in terms of their effectiveness.
"We badly need to get alternatives."
The strip of flowering plants in the cabbage crop at White Rock is providing nectar and pollen for beneficial insects such as ladybirds and tiny parasitoid wasps, which in turn will eat or destroy the pests.
"The wasps that we are talking about are often minute - not much bigger than a full stop on a printed page," Professor Gurr said.
"They will lay their eggs inside the eggs or the young caterpillars of pests.
"And when those baby wasps hatch out, they'll kill the pests and can often provide very high levels of control."
Researchers are hoping to answer a number of questions through the work at the trial sites, including the best type of flowering plants to use and how many are needed.
"We can say, based on the work we've done throughout Asia, where we're protecting rice crops with similar strategies, a single row of flowers around the edge of an average sized field will be enough," Professor Gurr said.
"But if there's a particularly large field, you might need to have a few strips running through the middle."
An economist, who is part of the research, is looking at the dollars and cents of the use of beneficial insects to see how it stacks up against the use of conventional pesticides.
"Again, based on similar work overseas, this could be extremely attractive to farmers on a dollars-and-cents basis because these flowers can control the pests so effectively that the growers have to use the pesticides much less frequently and it gives higher yields," Professor Gurr said.
"You're getting a double benefit: higher yields for less input costs."
Syed Rizvi, a research associate at Charles Sturt University Orange, said the trial at White Rock started in mid-October and the plan is for it to finish next month.
Already, he said, the experiment had been "a real success".
Michael Willott, whose 100-hectare property is hosting the flowering plants trial, said he usually sprays pesticide on his vegetables "every second week or so" but hasn't sprayed the cabbages at all since October.
He said it would be interesting to see the results in different weather.
"Because it's been so hot this year, we haven't had as many bugs around," he said.
"It'd be interesting when it's more humid, more rainy, to see when the bugs hatch out, if it works as well."
The research is being conducted through the Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation at Wagga, which is a research alliance between Charles Sturt University and the NSW Department of Primary Industries.
The research is being funded by Hort Innovation, which invests growers' levy money in research and development.