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Pollinator Resources

BMP Planning Guide and Template

Pollinator, IPM and additional best management practices are available in the GCSAA BMPs.

Golf facilities contribute valuable green space within any watershed and community. Within the golf course, natural and/or native areas provide opportunities to provide habitat for wild pollinators and honeybees. Golf course superintendents should continue to develop, protect and manage areas for wildlife and pollinator habitat. One key guide is the resource provided by the USGA and Xerces Society, "Making Room for Native Pollinators". Honeybees will benefit from these efforts as well. Golf course superintendents need to conduct pest control activities and those should be done in accordance with comprehensive IPM strategies while also complying with labeling laws set forth by the EPA.

Read GCSAA's position statement on pollinators.

Pollinator Habitat and Conservation

Selecting Plants for Pollinators
NAPPC's ecoregional planting guides, Selecting Plants for Pollinators, are tailored to specific areas of the United States. You can find out which ecoregion you live in and get your free guide by entering your zip code below. For Canadian Guides click here.

Making Room for Native Pollinators: How to Create Habitat for Pollinator Insects on Golf Courses
Xerces

Making More Room: A Companion to Making Room for Native Pollinators: Oregon’s Butterflies, Local Plants, and Extra Resources
USGA

Conservation of Native Pollinators on Golf Courses
North American Pollinator Protection Campaign

Tips for Reducing Pesticide Impacts on Wildlife
EPA

Best Management Practices for Turf Care and Pollinator Conservation
North Central IPM Center

Best Management Practices for Turf Care and Pollinator Conservation: Fast Facts
North Central IPM Center

Living Acres: Growing Milkweed on Golf Courses to Benefit the Monarch Butterfly
Harold D. Coble, Ph.D., professor emeritus, North Carolina State University

Bring in the Bees: Why and How
GCSAA
Pollinators, especially bees, are essential for maintaining healthy and resilient natural habitats in forests, fields and in your golf course. Learn about the many types of native bees, their roles in maintaining ecosystem diversity, and how they compare to honey bees. This webinar will help you understand bees' habitat requirements, and best management practices to maintain populations in natural and native areas.

Creating Habitats for Monarch Butterflies and Pollinators on Golf Courses by Chip Taylor, Ph.D.
GCSAA
In 1992, Chip Taylor, Ph.D., founded Monarch Watch, an outreach program focused on education, research and conservation relative to monarch butterflies. Since then, Monarch Watch has enlisted the help of volunteers to tag monarchs during the fall migration. In this 90-minute webinar, Taylor will introduce you to how to create and maintain habitats for monarch butterflies, pollinators and other species that share the same habitats. At some locations, it may simply be appropriate to create demonstration sites with relevant signage. On other landscapes, it might be desirable to alter the present low diversity vegetation to increase its value to monarchs and pollinators. Taylor will present methods needed to make these changes. He will provide some estimates of costs of the various projects you might wish to undertake as well as discuss how to minimize those costs through selection of specific flowering plants and grasses.  

Managing Native and Out of Play Areas with BMPs to Ensure Success by J. Bryan Unruh, Ph.D; Matt Ceplo, CGCS; Jay Randolph, CGCS; and Kyle D. Sweet, CGCS
GCSAA
Out of Play and Native/Naturalized Areas are an important part of the golf course’s green space. Planning, developing and maintaining these areas takes professional education, skill and practices to ensure success within the golf environment. In this 90-minute webinar, you will hear from Ceplo, Randolph and Sweet, who share the successes they’ve had using best management practices for native areas at golf courses in three different growing zones. Unruh helps explain some of the science behind the essential BMPs.

Bermudagrass, Bulbs, Blooms, and Bees by Mike Richardson, Ph.D.
GCSAA
Turfgrasses are planted on some 50 million acres in the United States. While turf is often viewed as a monoculture of grasses, there are many flowering plants that are often found in turfgrass systems that can add beauty, interest, and biodiversity to the turf and can serve as a food source for pollinators. In this 60-minute webinar Richardson, Ph.D., shares results from the University of Arkansas’ research group. They have been investigating early-spring bulbs and summer-blooming perennials as a means of enhancing turfgrass sites that do not require pure stands of turfgrass. Performance, persistence, and pollinator preference of various flowering plants are discussed.

A Greener Golf Course by Jay McCurdy, Ph.D.
GCSAA
Maintained turf is critical to the playing field of golf and provides a valuable green space in urban environments. There are other elements to the golf course that can provide pollinator and wildlife habitat. You can learn more about it and what you can do as McCurdy covers interesting aspects of sustainability in this 40-minute presentation.

Integrated Pest Management: Pollinator Habitat Promotion and Conservation in Agricultural Areas by Allen Felost, Ph.D.
EPA
The presentation covers land management topics such as cultural management practices, bio-economics, and integrated insect and weed management.

EPA Webinars on Pollinator Health and Habitat
EPA
The EPA offers several webinars on its website, including “Creating Monarch Habitats in Schools and Communities”, “Designing and Conducting Bee Studies”, and “Assessing Risks to Bees from Pesticides”.