By Christoph Kessel
Nursery certification and risk management co-ordinator
Ontario’s nursery industry moves a lot of plants. Plants crossing domestic and international borders can move insects and diseases. With each shipment of plants, you run the risk of bringing something unwanted through the back door.
Bringing in aphids and mites may not be a big problem. But bring in an insect or disease like Phytophthora ramorum (sudden oak death) and it’s too late to close the back door — your entire operation could be placed under quarantine.
What can you do?
• Know and be able to identify the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) regulated pests that affect your nursery’s location.
• Know and be able to identify the CFIA’s regulated pests for your off-nursery sourced plants.
• Inspect and document your plant inspections both receiving off-nursery sourced plants and prior to shipping plants.
• Regularly inspect your plants in production. Document your inspections and treatments if needed.
How secure is your back door?
There are two short quizzes you can complete to evaluate your nursery. They can be found at www.horttrades.com
Are you ready for certification? is a 21 question evaluation. The Canadian Nursery Certification Program (CNCP) and Domestic Phytosanitary Certification Program (DPCP) are systems approaches to managing regulated and non-regulated plant pests. You may be
surprised to find that many of your current nursery practices are part of the certification program. Complete this 21 question evaluation to see how much of a certification program you may be currently doing at your operation.
Phytophthora ramorum, sudden oak death – is your nursery at risk? is a short quiz that will help evaluate your risk to Phytophthora ramorum. Currently, Phytophthora ramorum is not found in Ontario. So the only way you can get it onto your nursery is from infected plants brought in from areas where the disease has been found.
If it is found at your nursery by the CFIA through a trace forward from an infested source, all plant shipments will be stopped. CFIA will identify and quarantine all infected plants. CFIA will not release shipments until they are certain that the disease has been contained and eradicated.
For more information on nursery certification, contact Christoph Kessel, nursery certification and risk management co-ordinator at Landscape Ontario, 1-888-211-5606, ext. 2377 or e-mail christoph.kessel@landscapeontario.com
