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.  For 2023, this was a hybrid meeting, with 11 in attendance in person and 40 on Zoom.

               Topics for the meeting included:  Turf Disease and Weeds Update, Invasive Insects, and, Right of Way Weed Control, Recordkeeping, 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 2023 meeting, a survey was given at the end of the meeting and comments from participants  showed the positive response to this meeting:  “Appreciate the effort in having this training…makes it easy to get my yearly CEUs,” “Thank you for making this class free and online,” and “Keep having it online if you can.”

               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 $6,205.00 was the amount saved by those responding to the survey.  Other questions dealt with respondents increasing their knowledge on Invasive Pests (95%), Pesticide Safety and Transporting and Handling Pesticides (85%), Turf Diseases and Weeds (97%), Right of Way Weed Control (92%), and 86% of respondents said that they would strive to keep better records.  Due to the success of the meeting, next year’s training will most likely just be on Zoom.