Chemicals not par for the course

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/05/2012 (4923 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s golf courses, often criticized for their heavy-handed use of pesticides, accounted for roughly six per cent of the weed and fungus killer used provincewide by permit-holders last summer.

The 65 golf courses that filed year-end pesticide reports sprayed about 11,200 litres of chemicals in 2011.

Provincewide, permit-holders such as weed-control districts, the provincial Highways Department, school divisions and companies such as Tolko and CN Rail used about 166,000 litres of weed and fungus killer. That’s according to an analysis done by the Winnipeg Free Press in advance of a looming ban on some kinds of cosmetic pesticides.

Unlike municipalities and weed-control districts that spray for dandelions and other, more noxious weeds, golf courses use mostly fungicides such as Instrata or Banner Maxx to kill snow mould. That’s a patchy, cobweb-like fungus that can kill as much as 80 per cent of a golf course’s grass, effectively rendering it unusable.

The St. Charles Country Club, Winnipeg’s venerable 27-hole course, used the most chemicals at 1,160 litres. The St. Boniface Golf Club, also an 18-hole course, ran a distant second.

Melita’s nine-hole municipal course was the most stingy with weed and fungus killers last summer, using only 13 litres of chemicals. The Beausejour golf course sprayed almost as little.

The Manitoba government is expected to release a discussion paper in the coming weeks to spark public input on new rules for non-essential pesticides. Legislation is expected this fall or next year, and will likely focus on weed-killers homeowners use on their lawns.

Manitoba is among the last provinces to crack down on cosmetic pesticides. Advocates and lobby groups are already lining up on both sides of the issue.

In most provinces with cosmetic pesticide bans, golf courses are exempt, and Manitoba’s golf course owners have already expressed their opposition to a ban, even one that goes easy on golf courses.

Darren Dundas, owner and manager of the La Verendrye Golf Course and a Manitoba Golf Superintendents Association board member, said golf courses get unfairly criticized for heavy chemical use. He said every course has trained, licensed pesticide experts who spray very carefully and consider themselves stewards of the environment.

“We try to spray as little as possible, partly because of the cost of it,” said Dundas. “We only spray what we have to and when we have to.”

Still, there are some golf courses that have managed to dramatically shrink the amount of weed and fungus killer they use. On the vanguard is the Clear Lake Golf Course in Riding Mountain National Park, which used no weed-killers such as Par III or Premium 3-Way at all last year.

In the 20 years superintendent Greg Holden’s firm has managed the course, it has only blanket-sprayed for broadleaf weeds twice.

“We always think ‘next time we have to do this again, there will be something softer on the environment,’ ” said Holden, whose course also uses compost toilets and recycles its cooking oil.

But most of the green herbicides Holden has tried have been ineffective, he said. Instead, the course uses boiling water, horticulture vinegar, hand-digging and even a small flame unit to burn the weeds away.

That’s labour-intensive on the greens, which must be pool-table smooth, and almost impossible on the fairways. There, the course experiments with overseeding and other techniques.

For snow mould, the course used 42 litres of Banner Max, along with 43 kilograms of Daconil Ultrex last year in a one-time application. When the course is open, staff uses a combination of hydrogen peroxide and tea tree oil on fungus eruptions.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

Review the pesticides Manitoba golf courses reported using in 2011 with our interactive feature.

Golf courses are listed in descending order of the total amount of pesticide used. Each coloured section indicates a different pesticide. Click on any section for details about the type and quantity of pesticide used. To sort alphabetically by course name, click near the header "Course" and select the downward arrow.

Source: Manitoba Conservation, post-seasonal reports filed by pesticide permit holders in 2011. Golf courses missing from this list did not file reports.

See a larger version of this graphic with sorting and filtering options here.