The Citrus Research and Education Center (CREC) Nov. 16 open house and field day “was quite a crowded event. It went off really well,” CREC Director Michael Rogers reports. Rogers says the event drew about 200 industry members, as well as 150 CREC faculty, staff and students.
The CREC is a University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) facility.
“This was the first really big event that we’ve held at the CREC in Lake Alfred since COVID-19,” Rogers says. “It was just refreshing to get to see everybody and talk to folks … We were very pleased with the attendance and the feedback we got from growers about the event.”
Rogers says a panel discussion that opened the event focused on things growers can do now in the face of HLB to get trees into production and keep them in production.
Growers at the event also sampled and rated fruit and juice displayed by CREC plant breeders. “We’re looking for the things that the growers think are going to be a winner in the marketplace; things that they can sell,” Rogers says.
The open house and field day also included faculty booths where growers interacted with researchers as well as afternoon field tours.
Rogers says the next big citrus event UF/IFAS will be involved in will be the January Florida Citrus Show in Fort Pierce.
This interview with Rogers is featured in the November All In For Citrus podcast, a joint project of UF/IFAS and AgNet Media. Listen to the podcast.
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