In May, just under an acre of land between the first and 18thholes of the golf course in College Park, Md. was cleared to plant milkweed seeds, as part of the national program to bolster the declining population of monarch butterflies.
The University of Maryland Golf Course has joined the national “Monarchs in the Rough” program, which provides milkweed seeds to about 250 courses across North America to help save the declining monarch butterfly population, reported The Diamondback, the university’s independent student newspaper.
In May, just under an acre of land between the first and 18th holes of the golf course in College Park, Md. was cleared, and milkweed seeds were planted, The Diamondback reported. Milkweed is critical for sustaining monarch butterflies, whose population has declined about 90 percent over the last 20 years, according to the National Wildlife Federation. The butterflies will only lay their eggs on milkweed plants, and their caterpillars eat milkweed exclusively.
“Monarchs do have to find you,” Christine Kane, CEO of Audubon International, the environmental education nonprofit that created the Monarch in the Rough program in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund, told The Diamondback. “It’s a little bit of a ‘build and they will come’ kind of scenario.”
With an estimated 1.5 million total acres of green space on golf courses across the nation, according to the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, golf courses are ideal places to plant butterfly habitats, Kane said. As it does for other participating properties, Audubon International provided the milkweed seeds to the University of Maryland’s golf course free of charge.
In the June issue of Club & Resort Business, the efforts of Paradise Valley (Ariz.) Country Club to support the Monarchs in the Rough program are described, as part of an article about that property’s annual “Audubon Day.”
The decline of the monarch population is due to multiple factors that have contributed to the loss of milkweed, Kane told The Diamondback, including an increase in the use of pesticides, changes in agricultural planting patterns, drought and urban sprawl. Even after new milkweed is planted, it could still take several years to create the ecosystem necessary for monarchs to migrate back to the area, she added.
The project at the University of Maryland course took about 150 hours and was more difficult than expected, due to the size of the planned habitat, said Andrew Janosek, the course’s Assistant Superintendent.
“We have a small crew to begin with, and [Monarchs in the Rough is] just a side project,” Janosek said. “It was backbreaking at times, but I think it will be worth it and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.”
The University of Maryland’s golf course has 177 acres of green space, which is ideal for the sustainability project, Golf Course Superintendent Brendan Rapp told The Diamondback.
“Being at a golf course, we have an opportunity to do a lot more than other people can do, with everything else that’s being built up and all the green space that’s been lost,” Rapp said.
In addition to milkweed, a mix of tall grasses and seeds for wildflowers such as partridge pea and Maryland senna were also planted, to add color and make the habitat more visually appealing, said Sam Bahr, a horticulturist at the University of Maryland’s Arboretum and Botanical Garden, which oversaw the planning of the milkweed habitat on the golf course, The Diamondback reported.
“Unfortunately, milkweed is not the prettiest looking plant,” Bahr said, adding that in addition to beautifying the land, the mix of flowers, grass and milkweed could attract other species of butterflies, moths and pollinators such as honeybees.
Last year, the University of Maryland golf course made an effort to attract other pollinators by building rain gardens, The Diamondback reported, and there are plans to plant more milkweed and flowers along the golf course entrance in the future, Rapp said.
Janosek said he took this project seriously because golf courses get a bad reputation for hurting wildlife, by using too many pesticides and fertilizers.
“Golf courses get a bad rap,” he told The Diamondback. “People immediately think ‘pesticides and chemicals and fertilizer’ [but] really, that’s the opposite of what we’re about.
“If we have the opportunity to do something that’s going to look good and save some animals, and be more sustainable in any way shape or form, we’re going to do it,” Janosek added.
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