Nursery Licensing & Inspection

Nursery Licensing

All wholesale and retail nurseries in Nevada County must be licensed through the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). Nursery inspections ensure that the consumers are supplied with correctly labeled pest-free plants for food production and ornamental use. We also assist nurserymen in finding proper methods of controlling insects, diseases and nematodes that would seriously affect nursery stock.

Nursery Inspections

The Agriculture Commissioner inspects licensed wholesale nurseries annually. Retail nurseries are held to the same standards as wholesale nurseries, but are not inspected annually. The Agricultural Commissioner, via its Pest and Disease Prevention Program, in cooperation with CDFA, performs state mandated nursery regulatory and inspection activities designed to prevent the introduction and spread of agricultural pests through nursery stock and protect agriculture and the consumer against economic losses resulting from the sale of inferior, defective, or pest-infested nursery stock.

CDFA currently provides registration and certification services for the following: avocado, citrus, deciduous fruit and nut trees, seed garlic, grapevine, and strawberry nursery stock and nematode certification for nursery stock produced for farm planting. The Agricultural Commissioner does not provide these services, but we communicate and cooperate with CDFA where these services overlap with meeting general nursery regulatory standards.