By Clint Thompson
Florida’s summer blueberry meetings have come and gone. It was an important series of meetings for growers in the blueberry region, according to Doug Phillips, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) blueberry Extension coordinator.
“Polk County and Alachua County were very well attended. We had a really good turnout for both,” Phillips said. “Overall, there were good presentations and good audience participation in the grower round-table portion of the meeting.
“It was a pretty diverse group of speakers that we had in terms of their backgrounds. We had Peter Dittmar, who covered weed management planning for the fall; Phil Harmon did a background on the disease clinic, what they do and the resources available; Gerardo Nunez did one on floral bud initiation that was really good; and then Cat Canone, who’s the executive director of the FBGA (Florida Blueberry Growers Association) and talked about disaster relief and other types of government programs that are out there. It was all good information for sure.”
While Hardee County also hosted a grower meeting this summer, Phillips believes that next year’s meetings will only be held in Polk and Alachua counties.