By Robin Koestoyo
University of Florida citrus and vegetable researchers will present their latest scientific findings at the 78th Florida Citrus Show on April 3.
A lineup of educational seminars will build on the show’s extraordinarily successful 77th show, organized by AgNet Media, an agricultural news communications leader. This year’s event will feature a tailgate-style trade show that includes breakfast and lunch. The festival-like trade show takes places between the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Indian River Research and Education Center (IRREC) and the adjacent U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory in Fort Pierce.
“Given that Indian River District growers are known to produce the world’s peerless grapefruit, we demonstrate UF/IFAS’s unwavering support and devotion to Florida’s citrus industry and vegetable production by co-hosting the 2024 Florida Citrus Show,” said IRREC Director Ronald D. Cave.
Expansions to the 78th Florida Citrus Show’s educational seminars will offer the opportunity to hear from a panel of citrus growers on their techniques to manage HLB in their operations. Heritage citrus growers George Hamner Jr. and Pat Schirard and inventive rising producers Timothee Salin and Matt Machata will serve as panel members.
A second panel of leading citrus breeders will discuss new techniques to advance crops that tolerate disease. Panel members will be John Chater and Jude Grosser of UF/IFAS and Matt Mattia and Kim Bowman of USDA.
Session leaders are IRREC professors and scientists including Sandra Guzmán, an expert in smart irrigation and hydrology, Mark Ritenour, an expert in postharvest technology, Flavia Zambon, an expert in citrus horticulture, Anna Meszaros, Extension agent in commercial horticulture, and Craig Frey, county Extension director and Extension agent in commercial vegetable production.
Citrus educational talks will include the following topics:
- Trunk-injection therapy performance
- New therapies
- Variety trials update
- Water farm research updates
- Sweet orange definition to offset HLB
- Pectin extraction and characterization
- UF/IFAS fertilizer recommendations update
- Postharvest fungal disease management
- Nanoparticles to enhance soil amendment performance
This year, the vegetable session will have interactive learning stations that growers can visit before or after the vegetable seminars. The stations will be table displays and demonstrations accompanied by UF/IFAS experts. Vegetable seminars will include the following topics:
- Food-safety update
- Technologies and tools for vegetable production, including soil moisture sensors and drones
- Weed identification and management
- Nematode management by anaerobic soil disinfestation
- Name that vegetable virus
- Thrips parvispinus identification, trapping, monitoring and management.
For more information about the 2024 Florida Citrus Show educational sessions, contact Mark Ritenour.
Online registration is now closed for the show, but onsite registration will be available at the event.
Robin Koestoyo is a public relations specialist at the UF/IFAS IRREC in Fort Pierce.
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