A recognised certificate of competence is required in order to use professional use herbicides – ‘weedkillers’ such as glyphosate. Legislation requires anyone who uses pesticides in the course of employment or business to have received adequate instruction and to be competent in the duties undertaken. This requirement applies to both the safe use and handling of pesticides and the application method(s) used including sprayers.
The relevant training / certification is a PA1 & PA6. Now, this is called a Level 2 Award in the Safe use of Pesticides. The mandatory unit is PA1 Principles of Safe Pesticide Application. Then application unit 6 is needed, which is ‘PA6 Hand held pesticides applicators’. This training leads to an industry recognised qualification from Lantra.
Delegates will need to undertake the Foundation module (PA1) plus a relevant application module (PA6 in this case). Assessment for the recognised Certificate of Competence takes place at a different time. PA1 assessments are taken as an online test, approx duration one hour.

Course Content:

PA1

• Legislation
• Interpreting product label information
• Personal Safety and contamination
• Pesticide and container storage
• Disposal
• Record Keeping
• Environmental Factors

PA6

• Applicator set-up Nozzles
• Read and interpret labels
• Equipment
• Environmental Risk Assessment
• Application of pesticide to area
• Cleaning sprayer and PPE Application Records