Mitigating Arthropod Mortality During Roadside Mowing: The Potential of the EcoCut Insect Flushing Bar

ABSTRACT Due to their size and corridor function, roadside verges are of concern for the conservation and protection of insects and other arthropods. Any opportunity to manage them in an insect‐friendly way, for example, insect‐friendly mowing technology, should be seen as an important contribution. Here we investigated the effectiveness of the EcoCut (air rail blower, model F360, Fischer Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG, Gemmrigheim, Germany), a blowing device to chase away arthropods, on nine grassland arthropod groups. We compared (1) a section treated with the EcoCut blowing device mounted on a switched off flail mower head and (2) an untreated control section on two experimental sites (i.e., ‘ecological compensation area’ and ‘extensive orchard meadow’) that differed in vegetation composition, height and density. We present a proof‐of‐concept study that demonstrates the potential of the EcoCut to chase away insects from a mowing site prior to the actual cutting but also suggests that its effectiveness depends on the vegetation characteristics of the area to be treated. In high and dense vegetation (i.e., ‘ecological compensation area’) only Diptera were effectively deterred. In less high and dense vegetation (i.e., ‘extensive orchard meadow’), such as roadside verges, seven of the nine groups studied were successfully ‘scared off’ by 46%–64% by the blowing device. Overall, our study demonstrates the potential of the EcoCut in significantly mitigating arthropod losses during mowing of roadside verges.