Federal and state law states a private pesticide applicator must be certified and licensed to buy, use, or supervise the use of a Restricted-Use Pesticide (RUP) to produce an agricultural commodity on property they own or rent—or—on an employer’s property if the applicator is an employee of the farmer. No pesticide license is needed if the applicator will only be applying General Use Pesticides (GUPs) or if you hire a commercial applicator to apply RUPs to your property. If you do not have a current private pesticide certification and you plan to buy or apply any RUP products, you will need to receive the same certification training as people who need to be recertified. All training sessions meet the requirements for both initial certification or recertification as private pesticide applicators. If your private applicator certification expires in 2009, you will receive (or have already received) a notification letter from the Nebraska Department of Agriculture (NDA). Be sure to keep the letter from NDA and bring it with you to the training session you choose or when you pick up home study materials. The NDA letter contains a bar-code form which tells NDA what they need to know about you. All applicants will receive an invoice from the NDA for the $25 license fee. Note: we cannot collect the license fee at the extension office. The certification and license is good for three years, expiring on April 15, 2012 for those who certify this spring. You should receive your new license within three weeks.

Additional Public Info: A $30 extension training fee will be collected at the training session (make checks out to Lancaster County Extension).