Surveys of the specified pest in the territory of the Member States
Article 8
1. Member States shall conduct annual official surveys for the presence of the specified pest on host plants in their territory, prioritising the surveys on the specified plants. Those surveys shall be risk-based. Member States shall transmit, by 30 April of each year, to the Commission and to the other Member States, the results of the surveys carried out outside of the demarcated areas based on the templates referred to in Annex I to Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1231 ( 6 ) . 2. In demarcated areas, the Member State concerned shall monitor the development of the presence of the specified pest. The Member State concerned shall, by 30 April of each year, transmit to the Commission and to the other Member States, the results of the surveys carried out using the template set out in Annex III. 3. Those surveys shall consist of visual examinations of host plants, sampling of symptomatic host plants as well as, where appropriate, asymptomatic host plants in the proximity of the symptomatic host plants, and of soil. The root system of sampled plants shall be checked for the presence of galls of the specified pest. 4. Soil samples shall be taken adjacent to symptomatic host plants. Soil shall be sampled at a depth of 20-25 cm. In the fields under surveillance, soil samples shall be taken in a rectangular grid covering the entire field whereby the sampling distance shall not exceed 20 m length by 5 m width. The sample size shall be 500 ml up to a total surface of 1 ha.