The Story So Far
The Pesticide Safety Education Program Office previously purchased copies for Extension Educators to distribute to private pesticide applicators during training. Due to increases in the costs of printing and services at UNL, the baseline cost of each EC130 (Weed Guide) is ~$15.00 per book for printing and shipping alone; there are other associated fees that are more difficult to calculate. The original cost of this guide was ~$5.00. The Weed Guide group has increased the purchase price of the hard copy Weed Guide to $25.00 on UNL Marketplace to recoup the increased production costs; the PDF version will remain at $15.00. This increase in the price of the book will likely take several years to help the Weed Guide’s account recover, considering that printing costs will continue to rise annually. Currently, the costs associated with providing the Weed Guide to all private applicators are unsustainable for the PSEP Office.
Results of a survey about EC130 published in CropWatch indicate that pesticide selection and pesticide application rates are the primary way that applicators use the Weed Guide.
Plan for the Weed Guide
Every year in December, Extension Educators send letters to all the growers in their area who will need to be recertified as private applicators. This letter includes dates of training and updates for the training. Many Educators use the Weed Guide during pesticide safety training, so the PSEP Office created an order form, to be mailed with the letters, that applicators can send back to us to order Weed Guides. Letter templates will also be created. This form will encourage applicators to purchase Weed Guides through our online PSEP Marketplace, BUT will allow them to mail in a check or cash if they do not have online capabilities. Unfortunately, the mail-in version of this order form will cause a large delay in receiving the Weed Guide and will also cause quite a bit of extra work from the PSEP Office in organizing money and submitting addresses to the distribution center. The Weed Guide is priced at $25 through Stevan Knezevic’s Marketplace. We will list the Weed Guide price at $25 on our PSEP Marketplace as well. All applicators whose licenses expire in 2022 will be encouraged to purchase Weed Guides through the PSEP Marketplace, but, again, they will be able to mail in cash or check to order Weed Guides if they so choose.
2021 was our “small year” (3,500 applicators trained), 2022 will be our “medium year” (6,500 to be trained), and 2023 will be our “large year” (9,500 to be trained) for private applicator training. This means that if we reduce printing by ~50%, as suggested by the administration team to prevent overspending, then PSEP would print 3,250 copies of the Weed Guide for 2022. Since this is our first attempt at this model, the PSEP Office will print 4,000 copies of the guide. This will provide a cushion for the first year and supply Pesticide Safety Educators with a free copy for their own use.
Below is the order of operations for this plan.
1. PSEP Office will print and have in stock ~50% of the number of private applicators whose licenses will expire in 2022.
2. Educators will receive a Weed Guide order form to include with the letters they mail in December to applicators who are due for recertification.
a. Recertifying applicators will receive an order form for the Weed Guide.
i. We will not provide a discount due to the cost of creating a discount code on Marketplace. The programming involved would require hiring an IT team to create the discount as well as monitoring and managing the discount. Discount code-sharing with persons not enrolled in pesticide safety training was another concern with this strategy.
b. PSEP Marketplace is the preferred method of purchase.
i. Weed Guide will be listed at $25.
ii. Only those recertifying as private
applicators will receive an order
form.
iii. Anyone can purchase the Weed
Guide at $25.
iv. Flipbook version available for $15
v. A small number of jump drives
will be created and provided to
Educators with a PDF of the Weed
Guide. These should be given out by
request only.
c. The order form will allow applicators to order by mail (cash or check) if they are unable to use the internet.
3. Educators will be highly encouraged to use the training materials provided by the PSEP Office: complete set of PowerPoint presentations, complete set of videos (plus supplementary videos), numerous activity options, and the blue Private Applicator Reference Guide.
4. A small number of jump drives (~40) will be provided to Educators to share (with discretion) amongst applicators that request them.
5. Educators will receive one copy of the Weed Guide for their own purposes.
This is a trial year for this approach and is open to changes. The 2023 EC130 may have a different plan of action if this system does not work. For questions regarding this plan of action please contact Jennifer Weisbrod at jweisbrod2@unl.edu