Pesticides are essential for horticulture to prevent or cure pests and diseases. However, their use is not unrestricted, and thorough records must be created and kept. In this blog post, we will discuss the information pesticide records should contain and how long they need to be available.
How Long Should Pesticide Records Be Kept?
Pesticide records must be kept for a specific period, depending on the state or federal regulations. In horticulture, pesticide records should be kept for at least two years from the date of application. However, some pesticides may require longer record-keeping periods.
What Information Should be Included in Pesticide Records?
Pesticide records should at least include the following information:
1. The Pesticide: The name of the pesticide product used, its active ingredient(s), and the EPA registration number.
2. Date and time of application: The date and time when the pesticide was applied.
3. Location: The specific location where the pesticide was applied.
4. Amount Used: The amount of pesticide used.
5. Re-entry Interval: The minimum time that workers need to wait before re-entering the treated area, as specified on the pesticide label.
When applying a Restricted Use Pesticide, the following information has to be logged as well:
6. Total amount of pesticide applied
7. Name of the certified applicator
8. Applicator Certification number
How does HortiPeMS help?
When entering a pesticide application in HortiPeMS, 3 types of reports are automatically created. These reports are available as long as your account is active and can be downloaded and/or printed at any time.
1) Application report:
This report contains all information that should be available for all employees on one page. It is normally posted in a central area.
This application report contains the following information: Date, Time, REI, Expired REI, Crop, Location, Applicator/supervisor, Notes, total gallons of mix used, and all pesticide information (registration number, name, active ingredient, and rate used).
2) Mixing report:
This is a simple report to help the handlers mix the right amount of pesticides and which crop and area to treat.
3) Application history:
This report can be filtered by crop, date, and location and will show all historical applications. When downloading it, you can choose which data it should contain (date, week, start time, end time, REI, REI expiration, Crops, Locations, Pesticides, application price, size of the area treated, applicator/supervisor, additional applicators, disease, and pest notes, and other comments). This report can also be downloaded in CSV/Excel format.
