Tripti Vashisth, associate professor of horticultural sciences with the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), recently provided a sneak peek of the citrus educational seminars at the upcoming Citrus & Specialty Crop Expo. The event takes place on Aug. 21–22 at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa. Vashisth coordinated the seminars.
“Our goal is to provide growers with information that can be applied immediately and is adoptable,” she said. “This will especially be the focus of the seminars on the afternoon of Aug. 21; things that they can do right now that will help them to improve their overall production. On the second day, we will still have those types of talks, but we will include a few forward-looking presentations.”
Charlie Messina, director of the UF/IFAS Crop Transformation Center, will be speaking about efforts to develop trees that are resistant to HLB. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will also be speaking about their “Grove First” research, which aims to find new trunk-injection therapies for HLB.
“Now that most of the growers have adopted trunk-injection therapies to treat HLB, there has been a lot learned about how we can improve the injection techniques for the best efficacy,” Vashisth said. “Ute Albrecht, UF/IFAS associate professor of plant physiology, will be sharing her observations and best practices growers have developed in the grove. Also, UF/IFAS citrus economist Ariel Singerman will be on hand to speak about the economics of oxytetracycline injections. This should be a very interesting topic for growers.”
Vashisth made the comments during a recent episode of the All In For Citrus podcast. Jamie Burrow, UF/IFAS Extension program manager, also joined the podcast to provide details about the Citrus Research and Education Center booth that will be on the trade-show floor. It is one of the largest exhibits at the Citrus & Specialty Crop Expo and is always a highlight for growers in attendance. In addition to learning about UF/IFAS research, growers can stock up on various “swag” items like pens and notebooks as well as citrus production literature.
Click here to register for the Expo.
To learn more about the Citrus & Specialty Crop Expo, don’t miss the July episode of All In For Citrus. The podcast is a partnership between UF/IFAS and AgNet Media.