Authors: Báldi, András; Pellaton, Raoul;Bihaly, Áron Domonkos ;Sziget, Viktor;Lellei-Kovács, Eszter;Máté, András;Sárospataki, Miklós;Soltész, Zoltán;Somay, László;Kovács-Hostyánszki, Anikó;

Sustainable farmlands should support both production and biodiversity. Restoration of semi-natural grasslands may improve sustainability. The size of restored patches and their landscape context are both important cofounding factors. We addressed these issues in the Kiskunság Wild Flower Field Experiment (https://ecosystem-services.ecolres.hu/research/field-experiments). We selected 24 circular landscape plots of 500m radius with either homogeneous or heterogeneous environment in Central Hungary. Within 16 landscape plots, 0.5 ha parcels were sown with a 32-species seed mixture of local insect-visited plants. Eight of those were a single large field or three smaller strips in the middle with 0.5 ha in total area. The remaining 8 landscapes serve as control sites. The experiment started in 2020, and we monitor the development of vegetation, bee, hoverfly, wasp and other insect communities applying transect walk, Malaise traps, pantraps, and nest traps. The records and samples are under identification, data cleaning and analyses. Our first experiences show that (i) continuous communication with farmers is essential, as flower fields require different management (or lack of it) than farmers usually do; (ii) each field may need individual management to achieve high flower cover; and (iii) the flower fields have no effect on yield in neighbouring arable crops.