author(s)
Divya Chaand, Rakesh Kumar Gupta, Suheel Ahmad Ganai and Shalini Aryan

abstract
Food growers in India have long believed in insectary plantings as traditional wisdom to attract beneficial creatures.in and around their fields. Therefore a renewed interest in employing the age-old farming techniques re-enforcing them with modern scientific approach is required for natural control of insect pests, In this study we conducted extensive surveys in farming households to collect and document this indigenous technical knowledge (ITK) and evaluated it scientifically in the field. It was found that some farmers grow combination of seed mixtures coriander + carrot (20%), some are grow coriander + carrot + fennel (22%), some are coriander + bishop weed + fennel (25%), some are grow combination of coriander + berseem + fennel (19%) and some are grow combination of all mixtures (14%). However it was interesting to note that very few farmers were aware about the eco-friendly insects that are promoted by these plants. Scientific validation studies however revealed that ecosystem services are promoted by these insects in term of pollination, predation and parasitism in the field. The frequency of occurrence by these insect groups was also increased over control i.e. without growing these insectary plants.