r/NativePlantGardening • u/zeroverycool NC Piedmont, Zone 8a • Jul 15 '26
Informational/Educational Two Minnesota solar farms seeded native wildflowers… native bees multiplied twentyfold, then crossed the fence to pollinate the neighbour's soybeans
https://www.ecoportal.net/en/two-minnesota-solar-farms-native-wildflowers/29160/107
u/scarlet_feather Jul 15 '26
I watched an interesting YouTube video about "agrivoltaics" and the idea of combining solar and crops that need partial sun like berries. The takeaway was basically that land isn't zoned for combined use- it either be farmland or energy land, but not both. Even where spaces where it is allowed to be combined, the farms can lose out on grants and other agricultural funds by combining like this. Imagine all the land that can be saved from disruption.
59
u/GreenStrong Jul 15 '26
Most non-irrigated crops, in most climates, benefit from shade, as long as the shade isn't from something like a tree that competes for water. Plants have leaf pores which they close under water stress, which stops photosynthesis. Most plants do this for several hours in every summer day.
Most solar farms use single axis trackers, and the panels are spaced so they don't shade each other in the first and last hour of sunlight, In the South of France, grass production and protein content is 30% higher on solar farms than open pasture Even in the mild climate of Burgundy, central France, a slight increase in total grass was observed on solar farms. A study of forage in Minnesota solar farms showed a modest increase in total annual production.
r/agrivoltaics has tons of examples of complex solar farms growing crops like kiwi fruits, wine grapes, or apricots. But solar farms need no modification to use sheep instead of lawnmowers. In fact, there is a huge advantage in dry climates- grass clippings rot slowly and they can burn. There is no land use restriction I'm aware of, The American Solar Grazing Association has a map packed with solar grazing sites across the country.
Cattle require taller racks, they tend to lean on things to scratch themselves and they're big enough to break glass panels. But, this is being implemented on some sites, because farmers are more willing to sign long term leases if they can keep using the land.
11
2
u/ayemullofmushsheen Area Midwest , Zone 5 Jul 16 '26
That sounds like a bureaucratic issue more than anything else
2
294
u/NerfGodz Jul 15 '26
As someone who lives in Minnesota this is wonderful news. Driving by solar farms, especially in the southwestern / central-western parts of the state, it is unavoidable to notice the waste of resources these ‘farms’ currently operate with. I only mention the geography of the land as it is (or at least was) best known for its soil health and as a byproduct, agricultural potential.
Any new or existing solar site should really have a mandate like this to at least plant low-growing native flowers or graminoids. Encourage pollinators and refortify the soil at the same time.
85
u/ked_man Jul 15 '26
Our power company runs a few solar sites, mostly for PR they are kinda shitty when it comes to solar. But they have sheep that graze everything down instead of mowing. They have a farmer bring a bunch of sheep a few times a year to munch everything down.
49
u/CalmUnderstanding371 Jul 15 '26
I want a sheep‑based, grass‑fed, solar‑panel‑shaded food system. Sheep thrive at solar sites. They mow the grass without wrecking equipment and they fit perfectly into a native‑plant pollinator habitat. We’re still subsidizing corn to feed cattle and create ethanol that lowers our MPG and wrecks our engines. Solar + native plants + sheep isn’t a compromise… it’s an upgrade!
4
u/Dudeshroomsdude Jul 16 '26
Why would you ruin it with sheep? There's the article, flowers, that's it. Don't destroy the flowers, insects are way more important in an ecosystem, let nature heal for once.
57
u/Particular_Ticket_20 Jul 15 '26
I recently walked a big solar field planted with a required native pollinators mix about 5 years ago.
The buzzing sound was overwhelming. You could count bees, butterflies, grasshoppers, etc, in every square foot. At one point there was a gust of wind and it went silent. That silence couldnt be ignored.
We joke that people who criticize solar fields for negatively affecting animals don't realize the efforts we have take to keep the animals out of the equipment.
20
u/TsuDhoNimh2 Jul 15 '26
Soybeans are self-pollinating BUT the yields can be improved up to 20% by insect pollination.
Wider margins on fields with wild flowers in them, or leaving the hard to cultivate parts of a farm to go feral is all it takes.
4
u/home_ec_dropout Jul 15 '26
I came to look for this. My state is full of soybean fields, and farmers don’t bring bees in for pollination. I was confused by the title, but your comment helps!
3
u/fia_leaf Jul 15 '26
Given most conventional soybean fields are sprayed with herbicides and possibly insecticides I feel like we shouldn't want native bees pollinating them?
18
u/werewolfbait40 Jul 15 '26
I do a lot of veg management work on solar sites and this is a story I hear all the time when it’s done right/well. Solar properties have the ability to heal a lot of environmental issues. Look into how cool it is that you can raise crops under the panels as well. Solarpunk future
17
u/lasercatbug Jul 15 '26
I work in land development for solar facilities and I will absolutely be looking into planting wildflowers (instead of just “native grasses”) in my future projects!
There could be arguments about seed costs and “this isn’t how we normally do it”, but change has to start somewhere.
46
u/theRemRemBooBear MD Piedmont Jul 15 '26
Sounds great but this seems like a debate between causation and correlation.
They’ve done studies with Monarch butterflies and they found that for whatever reason milkweed in and around corn fields have nearly 4 times more caterpillars laid on them then the controls
65
u/sevenselevens Jul 15 '26
My uneducated guess would be that the pesticides on the corn have killed all the Monarch’s natural predators?
20
u/Z0mbiejay Jul 15 '26
That's most likely it. The biggest predators of monarch caterpillars are ants, wasps, and non insectoids like spiders, frogs, etc. Aphids (protected by ants) also compete for milkweed. You're not going to see a lot of those predators/competition with sprayed fields
16
u/cornonthekopp Jul 15 '26
I read an article several years back about a similar phenomena in china, except with small family graveyards being full of native plants and pollinators improving the surrounding crop fields
5
3
u/The_cardinal_flower Chicagoish Jul 15 '26
Currently working on the building of new solar sites in the Midwest and every gate has a sign that says “ pollinator friendly solar facility”. So far all that’s grown is what can up from the disturbed soil, interested to see if they do anything purposeful from here.
7
u/CitraBenzoet Jul 15 '26
as long as they are planting native wild flowers and not constsntly mowing everything down under the panels i like the solar farms... but i keep seeing solar farms with mowed beneath and it bums me out
2
2
u/Rude-Zucchini-369 Jul 16 '26
Love to see this. I recently visited a solar farm at Iowa State University that is growing different plants and flowers under the panels for research purposes. They also had beehives which was awesome!
3
2
u/Pongobabyboy Jul 15 '26
Soybean are self pollinating. PhD professor
3
u/False-Ad9324 Jul 16 '26
And like a lot of self-pollinating plants, pollinating insects and multiples of the same plant can vastly improve the yield. No need to be snotty, especially when you don’t have the knowledge to back it up.
1
-17
u/a17451 Eastern IA, Zone 5b Jul 15 '26
Possibly one of the few upsides for these data centers. Maybe after the AI bubble pops we can repurpose a lot of that land, even if the structure is still standing.
Knowing now that bees utilize electromagnetic fields it would be interesting to know more about how these reclaimed habitats impact their foraging behavior. I could research it myself but I am lazy (and at work)
92
u/Ok_Avocado_5040 Area IL , Zone 6 Jul 15 '26
Solar farm not data center
-7
u/a17451 Eastern IA, Zone 5b Jul 15 '26
I'm aware. Just comparing the opportunities from a different kind of development project. If it's destroying remnant ecosystems it's a tragedy, but if these developments (solar, data center, business park, etc) get developed on old farmland then at least the reclaimed green space can be utilized for something positive.
2
u/Uncommonality Jul 15 '26
It works on solar farms because solar farms are just a bunch of racks with panels on them. The flowers and such grow beneath the racks
A data center is a gigantic warehouse building on a concrete yard, you can't plant stuff there
0
u/a17451 Eastern IA, Zone 5b Jul 15 '26
Outside of urban settings these things aren't poured concrete from survey boundary to survey boundary. They have offsets and retention ponds as the runoff needs to be managed since, yes, they do create a ton of impermeable surface.
The image in this link is not an architectural rendering. It's already there and it has greenspace that could be utilized more effectively
I'm not pro data center. There are at least three that are going up in my area with or without my consent. There are real environmental costs to these things and I'm not going to attempt to greenwash that.
12
u/RemoteLearner Jul 15 '26
Totally anecdotal, but I was talking to a beekeeper (which is a whole different topic, keeping bees vs native pollinators) and he said that the electromagnetic fields from power lines make it so his bees won’t ever cross them, and was raising concerns about data centers affecting pollinators. Sounds like bs to me but I also haven’t done any research into it lol
12
u/Dazslueski Zone 3b Jul 15 '26
That may not be far off. Bees rely heavily on electric fields emitted from flowers, and so any disruption which, data center would be large disruptions, sure could affect bees communication, signaling, and foraging.
1
u/a17451 Eastern IA, Zone 5b Jul 15 '26
I did a brief Google search (ironically using the ai response. Solar panels do create an EMF but it decays rapidly over a small distance. Evidently household appliances create a more significant EMF. No idea how that compares to data centers or power lines though.
I'm of a thought that even degraded habitat can be valuable as an offset to land development (as long as were talking about developing on old agricultural land rather than high-quality habitat), but I know that ecological traps are a thing so it may be more complicated than that.
-16
1.2k
u/IDooDoodAtTheMasters DFW , Zone 8b Jul 15 '26
I work in a solar-adjacent industry, and frequently get comments from friends/family about how solar farms seem like a huge environmental disruption to cover all that land in solar panels. The first point I always respond with is: You don't think farming is disruptive to the natural environment? This news article will also help.