This year’s Citrus & Specialty Crop Expo will provide seminars on a range of topics, including vegetables, alternative crops and citrus.
For Florida vegetable growers, more than four hours of educational programming will be available. Some of the presentations will address pest management, including whitefly. There will also be a discussion on how to optimize production in plasticulture crops, which are grown extensively in South Florida.
In addition, a special one-hour session will cover alternative crops, including bamboo. Growers will have the opportunity to find a niche and potential new revenue stream.
For citrus growers, the program includes five hours of education. The agenda focuses on optimizing therapies like oxytetracycline (OTC) to improve yield and quality. Lead OTC researcher Ute Albrecht, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences associate professor, will be joined in a panel discussion with citrus growers Larry Black and Jim Snively. The growers will discuss what they’ve learned about applying OTC and how the treatment is performing in their groves.
Another panel discussion will dive deep into new varieties now available to growers and how they appear to be holding up in groves against HLB.
Steven Hall, executive director of the Citrus Research and Field Trial Foundation (CRAFT), will give an update on CRAFT programs as new funding becomes available to incentivize planting and existing grove therapies.
The event’s trade show will provide growers with a chance to see the latest products and services they need to produce a crop. The trade show floor is always a prime spot for networking with peers.
The Citrus & Specialty Crop Expo is scheduled for Aug. 12–13 at the Caloosa Sound Convention Center and adjoining Luminary Hotel in downtown Fort Myers.
Registration is complimentary for commercial growers, commercial grove/farm owners and managers, certified crop advisers, grower association executives, government, legislative and universities.
All preregistered growers will be automatically entered for a chance to win a John Deere gun safe, courtesy of Everglades Equipment Group. Is your company interested in exhibiting? Please visit the exhibitor registration page for information about getting in front of the Southeast’s largest growers!
Complete details about the seminar sessions are coming soon. Be sure to mark your calendar for the Citrus & Specialty Crop Expo in Fort Myers.