USU Extension-Carbon County is hosting a Pesticide Applicators Training Workshop on Monday, Nov. 21 at 9:00 am at the Carbon County Event Center on 310 South Fairgrounds Road. Castle Country Radio was able to sit down with Extension Assistant Professor, Steven Price to discuss all the details.

Certification of pesticide application for farms and larger property owners has to be done every few years. “So every three years and it’s not all pesticides, there’s just a class of pesticides which can include herbicides, insecticides, that are used very commonly around farms or larger properties. These aren’t necessarily something that are going to be used by the average homeowner. But they’re a separate classification that you have to have a certification just saying that you know how to use them, you know how to use them properly, you know how to use them safely and those are sort of the products that we will kind of be addressing,” said Price. This will be a full-day workshop from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. This year lunch will not be served so participants will have a break from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm and then the workshop will resume.

Topics that will be discussed during the workshop are sure to help farmers and landowners. “One of the things we’ll be talking about is Russian Olive control, obviously something a lot of people are interested in, that we get a lot of questions about it. We will be talking about how to safely load sprayers, how to calibrate them to make sure you’re applying the correct amount of product. Changes in UDAF law so we’ll have the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food talking about any changes that have happened recently in the laws which is always good to keep track of. Of course, we’ll have things about reading labels, which is pretty not always straightforward, so that is something we think people could have some training on,” stated Price. Also, information will be shared about chemical selection and resistance management. The six CEU’s offered fulfill all UDAF’s requirements for private applicator certification. This event is a way to recertify.

“There’s no fee, its free, there’s no cost associated. We do ask that if you are planning on coming if you just could give us a call just to make sure that we know how big of a space we need, we shouldn’t be limited on numbers at all, but a heads up is always nice,” stated Price. Those interested in attending the Pesticide Applicators Training Workshop on Nov. 21 are urged to call the USU Extension Office at (435) 636-3235 or by email at steven.price@usu.edu to register.