Entomologist needed urgently :)

[Paul Alfrey]

Hello Everyone.

We have been experimenting with various horticultural techniques over the last 8 years in our demonstration garden in Shipka and have developed a system that is both productive and highly attractive to a large diversity of organisms. Many of you have visited our gardens and for those of you who have not you can read more about the garden here.

We are starting a project scaling up our methods, utilising 350m2 of Category 9 abandoned agricultural land on the outskirts of Shipka. We hope that this garden will provide a unique opportunity to study how productive an ecological garden can be and the role biodiversity plays in this. You can read about our study here.    

During the study we'll be recording the soil fertility and general soil properties in order to observe the effect on the soil under our cultivation practices and to record inputs in fertility, materials, finances and time. We will also record the outputs of the garden by weighing the fresh produce. We undertook a similar study last year in our current garden and you can find the results here. 

We have observed in our demonstration garden rising levels of invertebrate diversity but do not have the expertise or resources to record this. High levels of biodiversity is an integral part of the efficient functioning of the garden ecosystem, hastening nutrient cycling, enhancing pollination and maintaining pest and disease at manageable levels. We would very much like to have a clearer picture of the organisms involved and to what degree our system encourages diversity. We would like to include an invertebrate diversity study on the site and we expect to observe increased biodiversity as the garden develops 

Specifically, we are looking for expertise in charting the current invertebrate species (at group level) of the site in April, followed up with further surveys every 6 -8 weeks until mid October . 

Does anybody know anyone who could undertake this? if so please get in touch. 

All the best,

Paul