Electronic spray records in Ireland: what 2023/564 means for you

The competent authority

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), through its Pesticide Registration and Control Division, is the competent authority in Ireland. Products are authorised with a PCS number, and professional users are registered with a PU number.

When records must be electronic

The new record content applies from 1 January 2026. Member States could defer the move to electronic, machine-readable records by one year, so records must be electronic by 1 January 2027 at the latest. Check the latest DAFM guidance for the exact position and any national template.

What each record must include

• The product name and its PCS authorisation number
• The date and, where relevant, the time of application
• The dose applied
• The area, volume or quantity treated
• The crop or land use, identified by its EPPO code
• The BBCH growth stage, where the label restricts use to certain stages
• Where the treatment took place, such as an IACS land parcel, or another method accepted for your type of site

Contractors and their clients

If you spray for someone else, you must give your client access to, or a copy of, the records without undue delay. For a grounds contractor with dozens of clients, this is often the biggest change in day-to-day work.

Keeping records for three years

Records must be kept for at least three years and made available to an inspector on request. A good electronic system keeps an audit trail of any change, so you can show a record has not been altered.

How Sprayfolio helps

• Search by product name, PCS number or active substance and the authorisation number fills itself in
• EPPO codes and BBCH stages chosen from lists, not typed from memory
• Works offline, so records are made in the field, not from memory at the end of the week
• Exports in the 2023/564 layout as CSV, Excel or JSON, with a checksum
• A secure, read-only link for each client