Pesticide Education
Virginia Cooperative Extension will offer a continuing education class for people who hold current Private Pesticide Applicator licenses next Monday, Dec. 16, at 6:30 p.m. People who hold a private applicator license in the state of Virginia are required to attend an approved continuing education course every two years. The class will be held at the Rockbridge County Administrative Building at 150 S. Main St. in Lexington.
The occasion of next week’s pesticide applicator continuing education class prompts your columnist to review the role herbicides play in the stewardship of our natural resources in Rockbridge. Many folks are uncomfortable with the idea of pesticides and there are good and legitimate reasons to be concerned about how pesticides are used. I would like to highlight two broad categories of pesticide use that are important to Rockbridge County.
First is no-till and minimum- tillage planting. Talk to anyone in the farm community who was around back in the 1960s and they can tell you about heavy tractors making multiple passes over crop fields plowing and cultivating every May with thunderstorms causing washouts and silt accumulating on the roadways every spring. Herbicide technology empowered the no-till revolution that has dramatically reduced soil erosion and petroleum use for field crops while conserving soil moisture.
Second is the impact invasive species are having on our fields and forests. Manually removing Paradise Tree (Ailanthus altissima), Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellate), Multi-Flora Rose (Rosa multiflora) alone would require an astronomical labor force not to mention a plethora of other problematic invasives. Invasive species must be effectively suppressed if desirable natives (like warm season grasses or native hardwood trees) are to be reestablished and sustained in our landscape.
Managing our natural resources to realize societal benefits involves trade-offs. Careful and judicious use of pesticide products allows us to sustain our natural resources. Over time we have discovered some long-term negative health impacts from the use of some pesticide products and had to change practices as a result. The process of improving our stewardship practices never ends and the new product that is effective and passes current safety tests today may later be shown to have drawbacks that outweigh the benefits. That is not a reason to reject using any such tools. Rather it’s a call for us to be vigilant, ask questions, be skeptical, strive to learn, and seek the best path.
The class is structured to address issues familiar to licensed applicators but anyone is welcome to attend.
