By Clint Thompson
The Florida Citrus Show is no longer an event catered just to the citrus industry. This year’s show, scheduled for April 3 in Fort Pierce, Florida, will feature a seminar session specific to specialty crops.
Josh McGill, show director for AgNet Media, talked about what specialty crop producers can expect when attending this year’s event, which will be hosted at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Indian River Research and Education Center and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory in Fort Pierce, Florida.
“Last year was the first year that the show welcomed in vegetable and specialty crop producers. It was a way to better serve the whole region,” McGill said. “There’s a lot of vegetables going in along that I-95 and Turnpike corridor. We wanted to give those growers an opportunity to have a show to come out to, interact with the vendors and see some of the research being done there; at both the UF/IFAS center and USDA center.
“We put on a seminar program for them last year. This year, to build on it, we are adapting that seminar program a little bit where there will be a hybrid of standard lectures that I think growers have become accustomed to, but also some hands-on workshop opportunities where growers can talk more one-on-one with the researchers and pick and choose their learning environment and what they want to learn.
“We’re excited to see that new format come together.”
The vegetable sessions will be held after the tailgating event, beginning at 2 p.m.