02/13/07 Nursery Certification

Testing ground for nursery certification. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. It may be the wave of the future for Oregon`s largest agricultural sector- a new way to inspect nursery products exported to Canada and perhaps other foreign countries. Right now, it is only a pilot program and Oregon is the guinea pig. But three Oregon nurseries are participating in the U.S. Nursery Certification Program, which changes the way inspectors with the Oregon Department of Agriculture do their job: MCANINCH: It differs from the traditional inspection process in that we do not end up inspecting the product as it sits on the loading dock as we have done in the past. We look at the processes that they use to ensure there are no pests and diseases on that stock. Gary McAninch of ODA`s Nursery and Christmas Tree Program says this "systems approach" to inspection means the all important phytosanitary certificate issued by ODA for shipping plant material is already in place when the nursery needs and wants to load the trucks for Canada. No waiting for an inspector. It relies on the nursery doing self-inspection to ensure a clean, pest and disease-free product. MCANINCH: It`s also something that may be a marketing advantage. They can certainly toot their horn that they are in this program and let people know that they go through some additional processes with their plant production cycles to ensure they are pest and disease free. This alternative inspection program is voluntary and only in use for those nurseries shipping to Canada. However, it may be expanded nationwide sometime in the future and could be applied to all export destinations when it comes to shipping nursery stock. McAninch says the alternative program of inspection and certification makes it more convenient for nurseries that want to ship plant material to Canada, and perhaps other countries in the future. MCANINCH: This allows the nursery to ship essentially when it wants to rather than on our schedule. So they don`t have to schedule an inspection with us and wait on an inspector to get out there, look at the stock, and issue a certificate. We issue a certificate and they load the truck when they need to and ship when they need to. Midnight on Saturday? They can do it if that`s what they want to do. McAninch says if participating nurseries follow their correct processes, ODA will then certify the plants without looking at them on the loading dock. The end result should still be a clean product free of pests and diseases. MCANINCH: We will not go out and look at the product that is being shipped on a particular day. But we do audit inspections of the nursery and we look at nursery stock during the growing season. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.