By Clint Thompson
This week’s Citrus & Specialty Crop Expo was again a sweet success as farmers and industry leaders flocked to Tampa, Florida, for the two-day show on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Florida State Fairgrounds hosted the event for the third straight year, as more than 1,100 pre-registered. Seminar sessions were held for citrus and specialty crop growers, discussing topics like citrus greening, oxytetracycline trunk injections, citrus under protective screens, whiteflies, weed and disease management and potential new crops like bamboo.
One of the featured speakers was Rick Dantzler, Citrus Research and Development Foundation (CRDF) chief operating officer. He provided a positive outlook on the industry, which needs hope amid the lingering citrus greening disease.
“A lot of it has to do with the maturity of the science. Citrus is a tree crop, so it takes a long time to find out if your experiments are working. It’s not like a vegetable where you can put a seed in the ground and find out 120 days later if it worked,” Dantzler said.
“Citrus takes years, and we’ve had this going for a long enough period now to where we are seeing clear separation from things that are working to things that are not working. The things that are working I think are going to provide durable solutions that will essentially get this problem behind us once and for all.
“This disease has taken a terrible toll. We’ll never be what we once were, but I’m convinced we’re going to be many times bigger that what we are now.”