Finding a Permit

Plant protection products enable growers to safely control harmful pests, weeds and plant diseases in their crops. These products are critical to providing a reliable supply of healthly vegetables to Australian dinner tables.

The Federal Government provide a searchable database to assist growers and their advisors select an appropriate plant protection product and use it safely.

By way of example, say we have a problem with Western Flower
Thrips (WFT) in our field lettuce crop and want to know which plant protection
products we can use to control it.

The first step is to enter our query into the APVMA webform as shown …

APVMA search form

Our query asks for all products that meet the following conditions:

Crop = Lettuce
Pest = Western Flower Thrips
State = Victoria

By selecting the search button we are presented with
a list of matching products…

APVMA results page

We note that permits for many of these products have expired and they
can no longer be used for this purpose in Victoria.

*note
that different products may be permitted in other states.

This example shows us that the ONLY product we can use to control WFT
in Victorian lettuce at this time (May 2008) is Methamidophos.

By selecting PER10416 we can view details for the safe use of this
product to control WFT in Victorian lettuce.

APVMA permit page

We note that this product can only be used:

  • On FIELD grown lettuce
    (not hydroponic or greenhouse crops).
  • A maximum of 6 times with at least a week between applications

Finally, the product CANNOT be safely used within 28 days of harvesting
the crop.

Lets hope we have detected the pest early or we cannot safely
control the pest in this crop and must limit our efforts to controlling the pest in plantings at least 28 days from harvest.

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