APHA - plant sales and plant passports - what does the inspection involve?

I've written a couple of articles about APHA and the whole plant sales business: the original, long, one entitled Selling Plants, Working with Plants, New Law:   plus an updated article rather optimistically entitled Plant Passports - possibly the final word. 

 Yesterday I had a new question crop up, about the actual inspections: someone asked, 

"I'd like to sell plug plants on Ebay. Do you know what the inspection involves? ie, what they are looking for, things that will make me not pass the inspection etc. I don't want to have to pay for an inspection before knowing what they're looking for. Thanks"

 Which is a very sensible question! The answer was too long to fit into the comments box, so here it is, for that enquirer, and for anyone else.

And here's the usual disclaimer first: I am not part of APHA, I don't have any inside information, this is just my opinion and my common-sense approach, and in all cases, if you have any doubt, contact your local APHA inspector and ask them.

So, what's my take on the inspections? This is gathered from the forums we used to have, back in January 2020, when we were all panicking about it, and when every APHA inspector told a different story, so everyone's experience of the system was slightly different. 

Ah, happy days!

("Not.")

The inspection: well, the whole point of Plant Passports (hereinafter referred to as PPs) is to stop the transmission of diseases/bugs across the country: and, if that fails, to at least be able to track where the outbreak started, and how far it got.

So you are looking at things like:

- your plant hygiene: do you use new, fresh, bagged bought-in ie sterile compost, for the plants you are selling, or are you using your own back-garden, full of weeds/bugs stuff? Common sense here: if you expect to sell to the public, you need to use good quality, clean, potting materials.

Likewise, do you use new plastic pots, or are you recycling grubby old ones with mud clinging to them? 

Are your tools clean-looking, or are they thickly coated with sap and dirt?

- your record keeping: do you have clear simple records of where your bought-in plants came from, a way to store and record the PPs they arrived with, and a way to keep track of them as they move through your nursery/garden/potting shed before they are sold on.

- your labelling: do you create clear labels, which come up to the required standard? Do they contain all the necessary information? Are all your plants labelled as per the specification on the APHA site?

- your record keeping again - do you have a system in place to keep track of which plants went where, so that if there is every an outbreak of anything at your nursery, you can demonstrate that you know where every plant from that batch went to?

It's all quite basic stuff, really: hygiene is essential when dealing with plants, and record keeping is a very basic requirement for anyone running a business. Just think about what you would do, if you worked for APHA and some awful new disease suddenly appeared: how you would you track it back to the source, and how would you track all the possible infections. Think back to the early days of Covid....

So that's my interpretation of what is likely to be on the inspection list: but as I said at the beginning, the real answer is to contact your local APHA inspector, and ask them. Remember, they are not trying to fail you, they WANT you to pass, and to be registered.

Oh, and one final thing:  I also imagine that the inspector would be looking for signs of disease and bugs in your stock: but frankly, if you can't spot diseased and bug-infested plants, then you shouldn't be selling plants in the first place!

Did you enjoy this article? Did you find it useful? Would you like me to answer your own, personal, gardening question? Become a Patron - just click here - and support me! Or use the Donate button for a one-off donation. If just 10% of my visitors gave me a pound a month, I'd be able to spend a lot more time answering all the questions!!