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 2024, this was an online meeting, with 27 in attendance.

               Topics for the meeting included:  Turf Disease and Weeds Update, Invasive Insects, 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 2024 meeting, a survey was given at the end of the meeting and comments from participants  showed the positive response to this meeting:  “Thanks again for hosting this meeting and having it online…very convenient and cost saving,” and “We appreciate your effort with hosting this meeting.”

               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 $2,200.00 was the amount saved by those responding to the survey.  Other questions dealt with respondents increasing their knowledge on Invasive Pests (100%), Pesticide Safety and Transporting and Handling Pesticides (90%), Turf Diseases and Weeds (95%), Right of Way Weed Control (90%), and 95% of respondents said that they would strive to keep better records.