Steve,
That is a fabulous program with the bees and something that seems like a win-win-win for everyone. I am sure Mark would love to learn about what you are doing.
If I remember from your post it seems as if you are in France and you may be way ahead of the curve compared to us. The United States has seen a dramatic decline in its bee/pollinator population and our experts still don't know why. We do know there has been a terrible "Butterfly/Ripple Effect" and there is genuine concern over the long term effects of this loss.
I can't speak to the science of what impact insecticides and other man made products may be having on bees or any other animals. I do know we are trying to contribute in a small way through a program with Syngenta by creating natural bee boxes, planting wildflowers and limiting our pesticide, herbicide, insecticide usage as much as possible. Maybe its pointless but if we can provide a quality turf product with less relaince on chemicals we think it is a good thing.
Your fungicide budget would be the envy of many GM's in the US too!
I know that number is low compared to the US as fungicide budgets that I am familar with (particualrly in the SE where supers routinely spray weekly prevenative ratess of fungicides on bent greens during high strees, summer months) would be significantly higher than yours. Maybe fungicide use is higher than in Europe--it looks like it might be.
Again, as Mark pointed out, we do not believe we can get to a 100% organic course. To manage our course we do maintain an "aresenal" of "weapons" including the traditonal chemicals used by supers all over the country. If we develop serious brown patch, we are going to zap it with chemicals.
I believe that supers and golf courses are in general excellent stewards of their environment. Nothing we are doing or discussing is an attempt to bash anyone or any method of caring for a golf course. Mark is looking for new ways or methods to take care of the course in an economical manner; if it lessens our chemcial inputs and that benefits the environment that is another good reason to do this.
We recognize much of this is experimental--but "real scientists" respect Mark enough to want to spend time and energy quantifying his work and the plots on our golf course will provide real world quantifiable results that can be debated and discussed by everyone. Chemcial companies have also donated about $9,000 in organic product to be used by Mark as they respect his work too.
It does seem that the tone of your posts is skeptical and that is fine. But, as an industry we need people willing to try new and different things and approaches in many different environments. I do not think for a minute that we have "discovered" anything and its great that others may have been doing some of this for years--I do know in my area it is a pretty unique and rare approach and I am proud my super is on the leading edge of this in our area.
Again, thank you for the comments and please reach out to Mark if you find some time.
PS Mark has agreed to send me a document that I can post and he may be able to describe far better than I what he is up to