Urban areas are expanding throughout the world, increasing infrastructure and impermeable surfaces and concurrently decreasing quantity and quality of natural landscapes. With a decrease in green spaces, human communities experience an increase in food scarcity. Ecological communities experience a decrease in biodiversity and suitable habitat. Here, we aim to utilize native wildflowers, vegetable crops and urban infrastructure to provide healthy food as well as biodiversity options to urban areas. In this study we examine (a) how the presence of native perennial Colorado wildflowers may influence the yield of crop plants, specifically the three sister’s guild of maize, beans and squash, plus sunchokes and sunflowers and (b) to evaluate how the crop yields may differ between sites in full sun and partial shade landscapes. To do so, we utilize green roofs and ground plots at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado to evaluate the yield differences. We hypothesize that the crops with wildflowers nearby will produce a higher crop yield than the crops grown without wildflowers. Additionally, we expect that shade treatments will reduce yield compared to the full sun treatments. Thus far with preliminary data analysis, we find crops grown on the green roof with native wildflowers nearby had a higher average leaf number (as a proxy for the size of the plant). The yield of the squash crop was the highest on the green roof with the native wildflowers while the yield of the pole bean crop was highest at grade with native wildflowers nearby. This shows the proximity to wildflowers may have a significant effect and there may be an effect of shade for the yield of pole beans. With this research, we hope to provide notable insight to continue working towards the most efficient crop growth on green roofs in urban environments.
