Record Keeping, Emergency Response, and Professional Conduct
Records that prove compliance
Candidates must know what a pesticide application record must contain: date and time, site and location, pest and target, product name and registration number, rate and total amount applied, application method and equipment, weather conditions (temperature, wind speed and direction), applicator name and licence number, and any relevant notes. Records must be kept for the period required by regulation and made available on request. Traps: recording only the product and rate; recording after the fact from memory; and assuming records are private when inspectors may require them.
Understand the emergency response framework: know the poison centre and emergency numbers, keep labels and safety data sheets accessible, know the location of the nearest medical facility, and know how to report a spill or a serious incident to the appropriate authority. Learn that a spill or injury may require notification, and that failing to report can be an offence.
Professional conduct
Professional conduct includes honest advice, refusing work you are not qualified or equipped to do, respecting client property and neighbours (drift, noise, timing), communicating before application where required, and not pressuring clients into unnecessary treatments. Conflicts of interest - recommending a product you profit from - should be disclosed. Traps: assuming a licence permits every type of work; and assuming verbal permission replaces a required notice.
Rule of thumb: if it is not written down, it did not happen; complete the record before leaving the site.
Worked example: an applicator finishes at dusk and plans to write the record next week. The correct practice is to complete the record at the site while the details - wind, rate, time, product - are accurate, and to retain it for the required period.