Once a year, usually in the spring, CDFA representatives conduct field training sessions with the staff of nurseries that ship under the Nursery Stock Approved Treatment Program (ATP).
CDFA Environmental Scientist Patrina Brennan conducting a training at a large nursery south of Riverside, Calif.
The training is conducted to educate nursery workers on the ATP which was developed to ensure that no live glassy-winged sharpshooters (GWSS) are shipped from the infested areas to non-infested areas. “Nurseries in infested areas participating in the ATP must treat all plants being shipped to non-infested areas of the state with an approved pesticide,” said CDFA Environmental Scientist Patrina Brennan. “Since these nurseries are using approved treatment materials that kills GWSS adults and nymphs and provides residual protection against any emerging nymphs, there is no need for county personnel to conduct inspections of outgoing nursery stock.”
Brennan feels it’s important to not only tell people how to set up for and conduct the treatments but to tell them why and how important their role is in preventing the spread of GWSS.
As part of the training, a worker conducts a mock treatment on nursery stock to show how to properly treat plants before they are shipped to non-infested areas.
“The ATP was implemented in 2008 and has been very successful,” said Brennan. “We are all in this as a team, and the ATP wouldn’t be the success it has been without the hard work of everyone involved in this program.”
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