Citrus Extension Agents Encourage Growers to Engage With Their Services

Florida citrus Extension agents are a conduit to growers, connecting them with the educational and support resources of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS). Recently, two of those agents held stakeholder meetings to seek input from growers on areas where they would like to see more education and assistance from UF/IFAS.

Alissa Hevesh is the citrus Extension agent for Highlands County. In November, she hosted an OJ Break in Sebring to encourage feedback from growers in her county. Growers expressed interest in new varieties and rootstocks, new production systems like citrus under protective screen (CUPS) and how to access data coming out of the Citrus Research and Field Trial Foundation programs.

More recently, citrus Extension agent Edwin Gutierrez-Rodriguez hosted a meeting in Wauchula to engage growers in the territory he serves (DeSoto, Hardee and Manatee counties).

“Our first goal with this meeting was to reconnect with clients, as this position had been vacant for two years before I took this job,” Gutierrez-Rodriguez said. “The second goal was to gather ideas from growers and share what I have been working on for my Extension program and how I am delivering this information.”

Some of the delivery methods include a recent All In For Citrus podcast (episode 87), in which he participated. He has also contributed UF/IFAS Tip of the Week articles twice. See his articles on grove replanting and water management.

After the meeting, Gutierrez-Rodriguez invited Steve Brown from A&S Horticulture to discuss new CUPS design concepts. Growers then toured a CUPS structure under construction in Hardee County.

Both Hevesh (ahevesh@ufl.edu) and Gutierrez-Rodriguez (edwingr@ufl.edu) encourage growers in their territories to reach out and engage with their citrus Extension services.