16.2 Landscape, Turf, and Vegetation Management

Quick Answer: N.J.A.C. 7:30-6.3(a)3 and (a)6 split landscape and vegetation work into 3A Ornamental (ornamentals plus tick control in brush only), 3B Turf (turf pests; vegetation control on commercial and residential sites only; flea/tick in turf only; soil fumigation for turf only), 3C Interior plantscaping, 6A General vegetation management (industrial sites, airport runways, dams and other embankments), and 6B Right of Way (linear corridors, including insecticides on turf and ornamentals in those settings). 40 CFR 171.103(d)(3) and (d)(6) are the federal competency underneath. Do not treat 3B as a license for runway or dam weeds.

Core items in this cluster are almost always wrong-code questions. The pest can be the same crabgrass, the same tick, or the same scale insect. The site and the method change the New Jersey subcategory. Rutgers PAT again reprints 7:30-6.3 verbatim; study that sentence order.

This is still category-selection teaching. Sitting 3A or 3B still requires 40 hours of OJT and 15 applications each (N.J.A.C. 7:30-6.2(b)2ii). 3C is also 15. 6A is 10. 6B is 5. Two landscape cards mean two OJT blocks, not one shared 40-hour week.

Category 3A Ornamental

Category 3A – Ornamental: This subcategory includes commercial pesticide applicators using or supervising the use of pesticides to control pests in the maintenance and production of ornamentals. This subcategory also includes tick control in brush areas only.

Maintenance and production of ornamentals covers the nursery that grows shrubs and the landscape crew that sprays those shrubs after they are planted in a yard. It does not cover agricultural tree-fruit production (that is 1A). It does not cover interior mall planters (3C). It does not cover household ants in the kitchen (7A).

The tick clause is high-yield. Tick control in brush areas only is 3A. Flea and tick control in turf areas only is written into 3B. Ticks inside and outside the structure are written into 7A (and into 8A for public-health programs). A landscape firm with only 3A may treat ticks in the brush line along a planting bed. That firm may not treat the lawn for ticks without 3B, and may not treat the house foundation interior or the pet's bedding indoors without 7A.

40 CFR 171.103(d)(3) (ornamental and turf) requires practical knowledge of pesticide problems in production and maintenance of ornamental plants and turf: phytotoxicity on a wide variety of plants, drift, persistence beyond the intended period of control, and non-target exposures. Because applications are often next to human habitations, applicators must know methods that minimize or prevent hazards to humans, pets, and other domestic animals. New Jersey split that single federal category into 3A/3B/3C; the proximity-to-people competency still sits under all three.

Commercial 3A/3B/3C work also carries N.J.A.C. 7:30-9.13 turf/ornamental notification: white “Pesticide Treated Area” signs posted at the start, letters at least 1/2 inch, dark text, a 2-inch international no-walk-dog-on-lawn illustration, applicator or business name/number and phone. Signs may be removed after 72 hours. A Consumer Information Notice still goes to the contracting party. A CIN waiver does not waive the signs.

Category 3B Turf — and the 6A trap

Category 3B – Turf: This subcategory includes commercial pesticide applicators using or supervising the use of pesticides to control pests in the maintenance and production of turf. This subcategory also includes vegetation control on commercial and residential sites only; flea and tick control in turf areas only; and soil fumigation for turf only. Vegetation control on industrial sites, airport runways, dams or other embankments requires category 6A, General vegetation management.

Read that last sentence until it is automatic. 3B vegetation control is commercial and residential sites only. A home lawn, an apartment common lawn, a municipal park lawn, and a golf course are 3B turf sites. Industrial sites, airport runways, dams, and other embankments are 6A, even if the plant is grass. Grass on a runway does not convert the site into 3B.

The other 3B add-ons are equally tight:

• Flea and tick control in turf areas only — not brush (3A), not the house (7A).
• Soil fumigation for turf only — a golf-green nematode fumigation can be 3B; a strawberry-bed soil fumigation remains 1A; a structural fumigation remains 7C.

Category 6A – General vegetation management: This subcategory includes commercial pesticide applicators using or supervising the use of pesticides for vegetation control at industrial sites, airport runways, dams and other embankments.

6A is vegetation control at those sites, not a second turf-insect card. A lawn firm licensed only in 3B that bids runway weed control or dam-face brush needs 6A. The same firm treating homeowner crabgrass stays in 3B.

OJT: 15 applications for 3B; 10 for 6A.

Category 3C Interior plantscaping

Category 3C – Interior plantscaping: This subcategory includes commercial applicators using or supervising the use of pesticides to control pests in the maintenance of interior plantscapes.

The site is the interior plantscape — lobby atriums, mall planters, interior conservatories — not the outdoor bed and not the cockroach in the food court. Scale on a mall ficus is 3C. German cockroaches in the food-court kitchen are 7A. Outdoor holly scale on the building's foundation planting is 3A. 3C OJT is 15 applications, the same numerical minimum as 3A, 3B, and 7A.

Category 6B Right of Way

Category 6B – Right of Way: This subcategory includes commercial pesticide applicators using or supervising the use of pesticides in the maintenance of public roads, industrial weed control on driveways, electric power lines, pipelines, railway rights-of-way, fence lines or other similar linear areas that cross boundaries and includes the application of insecticides to control pests of turf and ornamental plants in these settings (NJAC 7:30 6-30 revision May 2008).

Two exam facts hide in that paragraph. First, 6B is linear infrastructure that crosses boundaries: roads, driveways, electric lines, pipelines, railways, fence lines. A dam face is 6A, not 6B, even though it is a long strip of weeds. A county airport runway is 6A, not 6B. Second, since the May 2008 revision, 6B is not weeds-only. Insecticides on turf and ornamental plants in those ROW settings are 6B work. A roadside tree spray on a utility corridor is 6B, not a substitute for a missing 3A card on a residential front yard, and not a 3A card stretched onto the transmission line.

40 CFR 171.103(d)(6) (right-of-way) requires practical knowledge of terrestrial and aquatic environments traversed by rights-of-way, target-pest recognition, and techniques that minimize non-target exposure, runoff, drift, and excessive foliage destruction, plus phytotoxicity and persistence. A 6B boom along a wetland ditch is a drift-and-runoff problem, not a 3B lawn problem.

ROW jobs over three acres can also trigger N.J.A.C. 7:30-9.10 community/area-wide newspaper notice. That is a notification overlay, not a new category. 6B OJT: 5 applications.

Worked New Jersey scenarios

Scenario A — lawn firm expansion. A 3B firm holds municipal park turf (inside 3B), then bids weed control on a county airport runway and on the face of a municipal dam. Those two bids are 6A. Adding a power-line corridor insecticide on roadside ornamentals is 6B. The park lawn stays 3B.

Scenario B — ticks. A property manager wants ticks treated in the brush along the ornamental bed (3A), in the turf (3B), and on the house foundation inside and outside (7A). One pest, three codes. 8A is the public-health program version of structure flea/tick work, not a landscape substitute.

Scenario C — interior versus outdoor. A plantscape contractor treats lobby ficus (3C), then walks outside and treats the foundation yews (3A), then baits the lobby for pavement ants (7A). Interior plantscape certification does not swallow household ants.

Official sources: Rutgers PAT commercial categories, N.J.A.C. 7:30-6.2, 40 CFR 171.103(d)(3) and (d)(6).