Rural Issue

Planting milkweed to rebuild the monarch population

BASF is working to help rebuild the monarch butterfly population.

Living Acres is BASF’s biodiversity research initiative helping to increase the monarch butterfly population by establishing milkweed plants in non-cropping areas of the farm.

Dr. Harold Coble a professor emeritus at North Carolina State University says as farmers became more effective in controlling milkweed the population of monarch butterflies decreased.

And now, Coble says researchers are asking farmers to plant the “weed” again. “We come in and say we need to grow milkweed and growers say they’ve spent a lot of time trying to get rid of these plants,” he says.  “But once you talk about it and talk about the public benefit of saving this iconic species than they  get the picture.”

He tells Brownfield they aren’t asking farmers to take land out of production.  “A quarter of an acre or a half an acre makes a really good population of milkweed,” he says.  “Because the monarch butterfly will hone in on an individual milkweed plant, every plant out there is beneficial.”

Coble says the population won’t be rebuilt overnight – but every effort helps.