New E-Commerce Resource Aims to Guarantee Shipment of Disease-Free Plants

Published by “How You Can Deal With Online Plant Sales” February 2018 cover story). “Each state has its own set of guidelines and guidelines that prevent infected plants, pest-infested plants, and invasive plants from being shipped into each respective state. In addition, there are federally quarantined bugs that are governed by specific federal policies that handle interstate movement.”

Not just does each state have its own set of rules and regulations, but those procedures are continuously changing. Boxwood, for instance, was on the safe-to-ship list of the majority of states till recently. However with the spread of boxwood blight, the state of Tennessee now prevents the shipment of boxwoods into the state without an expensive phytosanitary evaluation accreditation. As a result, Nature Hills Nursery has stopped delivering boxwoods to customers in Tennessee, and other e-commerce vendors may be neglecting the guidelines by delivering non-inspected plants.

In reality, the ever-changing nature of live plant guidelines makes it nearly difficult for business both large and small to deliver only authorized and compliant plants– particularly when there is a different set of guidelines for every single state.

“It’s extremely hard to follow all of the guidelines and restrictions,” Dinslage states. “We know plants being shipped by e-commerce vendors in our market that are not compliant in every state.”

Plant Sentry Compliance System

In response to the challenges presented by a prospering e-commerce marketplace for live plants, Nature Hills Nursery has established a thorough plant compliance system called Plant Sentry. This brand-new program is created to make sure that e-commerce vendors grow and ship just plants that are fully certified with the regulations and restrictions of the 48 states in the continental U.S.

“At Nature Hills, our intention is to be proactive and completely compliant,” Dinslage says. “Our Plant Sentry system makes it possible to meet the stringent growing, inspection, and audit requirements for plants in every state, consequently securing against the spread of plant illness, plant insects, invasive plants, and other hazards to plant health and ecological security.”

Inning accordance with Dinslage, the Plant Sentry Compliance System was motivated by the SANC (Systems Technique to Nursery Accreditation) program, which was established under the assistance of the National Plant Board, AmericanHort, USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Assessment Service, and other green industry leaders.
National Database

To develop the Plant Sentry program, Nature Hills Nursery developed an extensive nationwide database for plant compliance. This database consists of the plant policies and restrictions of the 48 continental U.S. states, and it is continuously upgraded.

State rules are examined to figure out which plants can not be offered in each specific state, and updates are gotten in into the database. Grower arrangements between Plant Sentry and each nursery make sure that all rules and policies are being followed at all times. The Plant Sentry Compliance Officer works closely with NatureHills.com and each nursery or satisfaction center to ensure only certified plants are offered and delivered to customers. Also, the Plant Sentry Program, through the Compliance Officer, utilizes state accreditation programs to make sure that plant material is complimentary from considerable nursery insects.

The Plant Sentry system likewise consists of a delivery certification program. Proprietary e-commerce software prevents the delivery of a limited plant to each state. Each online order is automatically evaluated to eliminate any limited plants based upon the consumer’s postal code, thus ensuring that just compliant plants are shipped.

In the not likely occasion that a limited plant is delivered, a robust recovery and emergency situation interactions strategy is executed. The state and client are alerted so that appropriate procedures can be followed for the return or damage of the non-compliant plant product.

Additional proactive procedures remain in place to achieve complete compliance. On-staff gardeners evaluate all online plant descriptions to make sure the details provided is total and accurate. Horticulturists also make nursery examinations to ensure plant health and wellness and work with state examination companies to make use of state accreditation documentation. In addition, horticulturists help the Client service Department to address questions about plant care and choosing plants that are appropriate in each state.

“At Nature Hills Nursery, we are fully dedicated to providing our customers with healthy plants that are suitable for their location,” Dinslage states. “We are committed to shipping just plants that are non-invasive and devoid of insect bugs and illness and are totally compliant with state and federal requirements.

“In order to accomplish the greatest standard of plant health, quality, and compliance, we needed to create our own system to make sure all of our plants have actually been examined and plants are not being delivered to clients in areas where those plants might end up being invasive,” Dinslage states. “We even developed an auditable manual with emergency action treatments to handle every possible contingency. We are taking whatever we have discovered and all of the systems we have established to create the Plant Sentry compliance program, which can then be made use of by other nursery e-commerce companies.”

The Plant Sentry Compliance System is currently used specifically by Nature Hills, however the program will be available to other e-commerce carriers of plant product in Fall 2018.

“We mean to brand name Plant Sentry as a name that nursery growers and consumers alike can trust,” Dinslage says. “When you purchase a Plant Sentry-approved plant from a nursery, a retailer, or an e-commerce supplier, you are buying a plant that complies with all state and federal guidelines and regulations. You can be sure that your plants are healthy and you’re not contributing to the spread of insects or illness.”