No need to worry for the Greens?

Among the products that will be banned from 2025, “very few were used,” says an expert

In the lobby of the Elm Ridge Golf Club clubhouse on Île Bizard, sepia photos, yellowed newspaper clippings and pen-signed documents remind us that the establishment is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.

A few dozen meters from the entrance, a red-tailed hawk takes flight majestically.

On the 380 acres of grassy and wooded property, you can also see foxes, coyotes, wild turkeys and white-tailed deer, says club superintendent Mark Lane.

While the wildlife is diverse, the variety of synthetic pesticides used in the field is much less so, he assures.

Montreal has eight golf courses, including municipal courses. When the city banned the use of some thirty pesticides on its territory in January 2022, it granted an exemption to golf courses, allowing them to use “any pesticide that is not a neonicotinoid.” This is hardly surprising, since the provincial Pesticide Management Code also provides exceptions for golf courses.

In Montreal, however, the exemption will end in 2025, the city announced last month. Only two “limited” exceptions will remain. Two herbicide molecules (mecoprop and 2,4-D) can be used in the spring (April 15 to June 15) “to control plantain,” and a fungicide (chlorothalonil) can be applied before winter (October 15 to October 1^er December).

Upon verification, the first two ingredients benefiting from an exception are present in 7 of the 11 herbicides banned in Montreal. The third is one of the 6 fungicides on the index.

Little difference

In other words, only four herbicides will become completely banned from golf courses. Five fungicides as well as about fifteen insecticides and rodenticides will also be inaccessible to them. But Elm Ridge does not use these pesticides, says its superintendent.

“The only new things that affect us are the restriction on the period of use of mecoprop and 2,4-D, and chlorothalonil [uniquement en] winter period,” Mr. Lane said.

“If I look at the list, honestly, there aren’t that many products that were used, so the impact won’t be that significant in terms of quantities,” also estimates Guillaume Grégoire, professor at the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at Laval University, specializing in lawns.

Pesticide use records from Montreal golf courses show that there are gains to be made, responds the director of the Office of Ecological Transition and Resilience, Sidney Ribaux.

What to expect?

At the Montreal Municipal Golf Course, a nine-hole course near Maisonneuve Park, the city conducted tests for two seasons to see if the golf courses “could continue to operate, function” without synthetic pesticides. This is what prompted it to leave exemptions, to “go there gradually” and not “put in place a regulation that would close the golf courses.”

But the eight exempted products “will have a limited permission in time,” argues Mr. Ribaux.

What will the impact be on private land like Elm Ridge?

For herbicides (mecoprop and 2,40-D), which are only allowed in the spring, “I wouldn’t say it’s a big amount,” Lane predicts. When these products are used for “a fall cleanup […]these are only targeted treatments.”

As for the fungicide (chlorothalonil), the application of which will be limited to late autumn, it will only be able to control winter mould. Golf courses will therefore no longer be able to use it against “dollar spots” (plaque burn) between May and October.

Elm Ridge, which holds a commercial applicator permit, also received 17 tickets totaling more than $26,000 for not having this municipal permit for several months last year.

The case had “fallen between two seats” because of a change in management, the club’s general manager, Philippe Duranceau, told us, and he plans to contest these infractions.

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Chlorothalonil, 2,4-D and mecoprop are among the active ingredients most used by Quebec golf courses, according to the most recent provincial report (see following text).

Montreal will therefore continue to work with its municipal golf course to “see how far we can go,” and to monitor the registers of private golf courses, says Mr. Ribaux.