Operation Pollinator is a go

Back in early Spring I was reading an industry magazine about the decline of European honey bees world wide and thinking about all of the bees I see around our beautiful flower gardens. In the article I kept reading about and a company named Syngenta and its efforts to promote an initiative called Operation Pollinator.

So what is Operation Pollinator? Operation Pollinator aims to provide the essential habitat to boost numbers of crucially important pollinating insects.  • Protect and enhance overall biodiversity • Improve crop yields and quality • Secure a sustainable farming and environmental balance
Why do we need Operation Pollinator?	What will Operation Pollinator  deliver?
Pollinating insects are a vital part of the natural ecosystem. They are responsible for the successful pollination of a wide range of plants that provide essential food sources for birds and animals, as well as the pollination of many fruit, vegetable and oilseed food crops. Bumblebee numbers have declined by 70% over the past 40 years driven mainly by loss of habitat, with three species on the verge of extinction and some disappearing altogether. Golf courses are well placed to put the essential habitat back to help prevent further decline. Bumblebees play a crucial role as one of natures’ pollinators, but they are in serious decline and need our help now. Helping to resurrect bumblebee populations and other pollinating insects will help to prove that golf courses can be managed in harmony with the environment and to provide valuable wildlife habitats.   Operation Pollinator builds on Syngenta-funded independent scientific research, proven to deliver significant increases in biodiversity and especially pollinating insects.

Where does The Country Club of Naples fit in?

After making some contacts with some Syngenta people I know I got in touch with the guy pictured with me. This is Walt Osborne, he heads up the Operation Pollinator program for Syngenta. I invited him to the golf course to take a look at what we were already doing with our flower gardens and to see all of the bees we already had. Additionally, I was thinking off partially redoing this landscape grass bed between 10 and 13 with some wildflowers to dress up the start of the back nine anyway, so I thought it would be great get involved in the program and get some advice on what we can do to help.
 

After speaking with Walt and coming up with a plan, my next step was to talk to Mr. Daniel and Tim. Both were very supportive of the two fold benefits Operation Pollinator provides, enhancing the environment and enhancing the aesthetics of the course. 

Knowing the we had a full plate of summer activities already planned it was decided to wait until the fall flower planting season to do anything. This is why for most of the summer the grass bed remained unchanged. Then around the beginning of August it was time for bed prep. Step one was to remove the portion of the bed being converted.

 

 

The bed was purposefully left fallow for a while so my team could kill any weeds and remaining plants that would invade the new flower bed. A couple of weeks ago the flower company came out and installed the new pollinator garden. I decided to use larger potted plants rather than seeds so the visual impact was immediate and dealing with weeds would be easier.

 

 

Establishing Operation Pollinator habitat can:

• Significantly increase pollinating insect numbers

• Hugely benefit butterflies and other insects

• Improve crop yields from better pollination

• Simultaneously create habitats for small mammals and    farmland birds

• Simplify field management

• Deliver soil and water protection measures

Creating half a hectare of Operation Pollinator habitat on the golf course is an equivalent area of more than 600 golf club members each creating a 4m x 2m wildflower area at home,and delivers a living and aesthetically pleasing focus for environmental work on the course.

No that's not a bird house on the Operation Pollinator sign post. It's a solitary bee house.

As it turns out, not all bees are super thrilled to live in the hive. Some are loners and live a solitary life. This block of wood is drilled with lots of holes for the loners to make their own little nest. They crawl in, lay their eggs and then seal the hole up with some wax and fly off. When the egg hatches it burrows out and begins its life as a pollinator. Who knew.....

 

One of the greatest things about golf courses are their preservation of green space in the increasing urban landscape. Our hidden gem of a course is home to a multitude of wildlife, birds and now bees as well. 

 

For more on Operation Pollinator click below

Operation Pollinator