Starting January 1, 2011, new rules for herbicide application on public land by volunteers was announced for the state of Illinois. These new rules allow public agencies to more easily train and license volunteers to apply herbicide to restore natural areas. Unlike the current licensing process, these rules allow the training to be held locally by the public agency, free to volunteers and finally will be specific to using herbicide for management of invasive species. Under these new rules, each agency will be required to host their own training and it will need to be conducted by a staff person that has an applicator license.
After these new rules were released, there were many questions. To address these questions, The Nature Conservancy, the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission and the Illinois Department of Agriculture prepared a FAQ sheet on the new rules and roster that can be used by agencies for their training(s). Click Here to view FAQ
Below is a link to a PowerPoint presentation that you can use as a template for your training. Also included is a link to the Herbicide Use Manual, created by the VSN and now available to download online. These are great tools to get you started! I encourage all agencies to take advantage of this new training opportunity for their volunteers. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact Karen Tharp at ktharp@tnc.org.
Herbicide Training Example - Powerpoint
Herbicide Training Example - PDF
VSN Herbicide Manual - PDF
VSN Herbicide Manual - Word Document - ‘For easy editing’