Plant Health Guide: passporting and marketing requirements

Action on receipt of plant passports

You must retain any plant passports (including replacement plant passports) you receive for at least one year to enable the SERPID Horticulture and Marketing Unit to trace back any outbreaks of pests or diseases. Where your supplier has used the delivery note as the passport or has sent a split passport (with some information on the label and the remainder on an accompanying document) you need only retain the accompanying document. If all the passporting information is on a label, the label must be kept. However, this is not always practical (for example, where labels are firmly glued to plant trays), and some labels are easily misplaced. In such cases, the passporting information may be copied onto a manual or computer log providing this is easily accessible to SERPID Horticultural Officers on inspection.

You must also retain records (either written or in another indelible fashion) on the plant propagating material you buy or sell and any mixing carried out during packaging, storage, transport or delivery. It is not necessary to retain the original supplier document (unless part of this forms the plant passport). Further information is available at Appendix G.