Each fall, the Spencer County Cooperative Extension Service hosts a meeting for commercial pesticide applicators to help them receive Continuing Education Units so that they can keep their licenses up to date from year to year.  Due to meeting room renovations, the Agriculture and Natural Resources agent decided to hold a Zoom meeting in November.

               Topics for the meeting included:  Turf Disease and Weeds Update, Top Pests of 2022, and Safely Transporting and Storing Pesticides.  The meeting was advertised on the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture CEU Training schedule, on the UK Turf website, and the agriculture agent’s newsletter.

               For the 2022 meeting, there were a total of 49 participants on this Zoom meeting, and comments from a follow-up survey showed the positive response to this meeting:  “Thank you for making this class free and online,” “Good topics and appreciate the updates,” “Like the new updates on the Licensing. Thanks,” and “Enjoyed the training.”

               Responses to the survey questions showed the economic value of the participants to not have to pay a registration fee and to pay travel for the employees to attend trainings that could be many miles away from their work location.  A total of $5,700.00 was the amount saved by those responding to the survey.  Other questions dealt with respondents increasing their knowledge on Pests of 2022 (97%), Pesticide Safety and Transporting and Handling Pesticides (81%), Turf Diseases and Weeds (97%), and 86% of respondents said that they would strive to keep better records.  Due to the success of these Zoom meetings, the plan for 2023 will be to hold it in person and on Zoom as well.