Hairy Passports

Hi,
I hope you are all having a good run up to Christmas. Our tree was decorated yesterday so I'm ready.

Plant passport changes are here.
Considering how quiet it should be for us at this time of year, I still find myself here late into the evening and weekends too. The whole updating of the plant passporting system has really thrown a bit of a spanner in the works. The official start date is the 14th of December and although we have, in theory, a 12 month grace period to get it all set up correctly, we would really like to get it right from the word GO. Like many producers we have had to take a bit of a punt on how we interpret the new rules, after a period of a lack of clarity or clear practical direction from the advisory bodies. Last week saw a flurry of new guidance, but I'm not sure if it's all a bit late for most.

I am hoping you will not actually notice too much of a change, we have tried to keep the implementation as seamless as we can. Here are the main changes we have made that you will see, to comply with the new regulations;

- All individual plant labels from now on will have extra PP info on them (A- the genus and species of the plant, B-our producer plant passport number, C- a batch number, D- country of origin, an image of the EU flag).
- All delivery notes have been redesigned to included the same info.
- All invoices have been redesigned to included the same info.

In theory, at the moment, we need not put the PP details on each individual plant, if we are supplying retailers. We could just attached a label on each trolley listing all the plants. However complications may occur if the plant is then sold on to another professional, who is buying and planting for someone else (eg a landscaper), where the plant passport info really should be passed on. This is only practical if the PP info is passed on with each plant. Quite how the landscaper then keeps the info on record for the required three years I'm not sure, but I suspect that issue will get ironed out at a later stage.

All new colour labels will have the PP info printed on them, and all old label stock will be over-stuck with small sticky labels with PP info on it (160,000 to stick). The PP info appears in the rather convenient blank space, behind the top of the skewer on the reverse side of the label. The wooden herb labels, which we print ourselves, are all having new printing plates made for them and the info will appear towards the bottom of the label and is obscured from general sight at or just below the compost level. Because we now treat the labels with a bit of water protection the details remain visible for many weeks. If the authorities are worried about this positioning, we may have to print the info on a separate label and insert that in the pot too but we are hoping to avoid this, to save on resources.

The changes to the delivery note and invoice are so that you can easily comply with the regulations and keep the PP records for the required three years. You have to keep invoices as a tax record for a longer time than three years already, so you can just use these as your PP record, without involving any extra filing etc. Alternatively you can use the delivery notes as your record, or use a combination of the two.

I won't bore you with the programming fun I have had changing spreadsheet fields and data, report formats, screen designs and alike, but I hope we are just about there on all the paperwork. The colour label over-sticker printing and application is well underway (up to E!) and about half the new herb printing plates are made. I suspect my £10,000 estimate on implementation costs will be conservative, but luckily our programmer, sticker printer and plate maker is super cheap and likes a challenge!

Wooden box collections
We are just about done now with the collections of our wooden boxes. We are not out much at the moment but if anyone still has any trays ready to go, just drop me a line and we will pop in when next close by. Thanks for all your help, on the whole we have kept up a great return rate, which helps the whole system continue to work sustainably.

Availability highlights
Cyclamen coum varieties are doing their thing, in bud and flower. These hardy stars will flower from now until mid Spring. Nicely subtle bloomers with a constant feed of new flower rather than one huge flush.
Winter interest in vartieties of evergreens bowls along, with a wider range than usual of Bergenia's which will start flowering in very early spring, along with the lovely Euphorbia's. 

Have a great week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.