By Megan Dewdney
To make informed management decisions, growers need to know about and understand the findings from huanglongbing (HLB) research that are currently available. However, the delivery of research results to growers is often fragmented, and results can be difficult to find. Furthermore, what information and conclusions are available to growers from projects or scientific journals can be highly technical and difficult to easily absorb. Therefore, growers are not experiencing the greatest benefit from current HLB research results.
To help improve the communication between researchers and growers, a new coordinated network aims to make it easier to find information about HLB management and research funded and/or carried out by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) agencies. The project will develop a database that will make the information more easily searchable, in part by including key words used by growers. Short, non-technical summaries of research projects and findings will be available that will be linked to relevant technical documents if there is interest in the details.
Since all summaries cannot be completed at the beginning of the project, an advisory committee of growers will help prioritize what research areas to focus on first. In addition, surveys will be conducted to understand the priorities of citrus growers from around the United States. From the information gathered from growers, two decision-making tools will be developed based on the available research results to help growers make the most informed management decisions.
If you are interested in participating in the surveys or being on the advisory committee, please contact me at mmdewdney@ufl.edu or 863-956-8651. This cannot be a success without input from the citrus industry.
This project is funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Megan Dewdney is an associate professor at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred.
Share this Post
Sponsored Content