Monday, March 28, 2011

Spring Regulatory Tour 2011

Wow. They call this work? That’s what I was thinking all last week when I was selected to participate in the Spring Regulatory Tour, a weeklong tour given by the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association. There were about 24 of us mostly from Florida and Washington, D.C. The tour ‘is designed to give regulators a firsthand look at the agriculture industry’s challenges and a better understanding of how the decisions they make affect Florida agriculture.” -FFVA

Since it would take me a long time to go through what we did each and every day, I’ll provide lots of pictures and captions instead of a play-by-play. I can say that the days were long, we stood on our feet a lot, we had gorgeous hot weather, I learned a TON, I met a lot of great people, I am so thankful I got to be a part of this! Oh and our mode of transportation was a charter bus that jerked violently every time we slowed down. Started off funny, ended up extremely annoying. Good times.

Day 1

After the early departure from Tallahassee at 5:30 am, our “crew” of four from my work started our 6 hour ride to Ft. Myers. We arrived at the hotel, checked in, and had a nice welcome lunch followed by introductions and presentations to kick off the tour.

Our first official tour stop was the Old Collier Golf Club. This place was amazing!

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{Tim Hiers, Superintendent} {Cute Tee Markers}

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{Beautiful course} { Eek, snakeys!}

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{Mock pesticide application demo}

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{Pesticide storage} {Beautiful club house}

One thing I must mention, since eating is my thing, the food everywhere we went was UH-MAZING. We were spoiled and I was loving it! Oh and key lime pie was our usual dessert…heaven!

Day 2

Our second day we were up and at ‘em early. This was the case every day by the way…up at down and back pretty much at dusk/late afternoon.

First stop, Syngenta Flowers.

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{Very thankful for my A/C desk job…}

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Second stop, Six L’s Farm.

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{Fresh tater!}

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{Fresh mater}

Day 3

First stop, Barron Collier/Silver Strand

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{Checkout the spiderweb on the right}

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{Future harvester?} {Citrus flowers}

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Vanna White? ;)

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{Citrus diseases - Citrus Greening, Citrus Canker}

Second stop, Sugar Cane Growers Co-Op of Florida & Florida Crystals

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{Massive tractor!}

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{Rodenticides have been greatly reduced with the “Barn Owl Project”}

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{Owl Pellet} {Leftovers?}

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{Lake Okeechobee from Herbert Hoover Dike}

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{Hotel in Clewiston, FL}

Day 4

First stop, King Ranch (sod farm).

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Hard workers I tell ya.

Second stop, Duda Farms where we got to see celery & radishes being harvested. This was one of my favorite tour stops of the trip. I was fascinated with the harvesting process.

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{Crop duster} {Celery harvesting}

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{The smell was absolutely wonderful! Needed some dressing though:) }

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{Fresh From Florida, folks!}

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{Mechanical harvesting}

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Third stop, American Farms.

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We then headed to Naples, FL and checked into an awesome hotel, the Bay Front Inn. It was wonderful!

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{View from hotel patio}

Day 5

On our fifth and final day, we headed to the Lee County Mosquito Control District/Lee County Hyacinth Control District.

What did we plan to do there? Well a helicopter ride of course! WOW! They took us to Beautiful Island via helicopter where we went to a baby mangrove forest for a pesticide application done via a helicopter flyover. It was just water, but we got drizzled as if we were some mosquitos!

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{Nervous!}

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{The view from here}

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{Mangrove Forrest – mosquito breeding ground when under water}

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{LCHCD for aquatic weed control}

And no, we did not get to go on the airboat:/

In the lab we got to see how larvicides are tested and developed

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{Mosquito Larvae} {Adult Mosquitos}

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{Recently remodeled applicator plane}

The planes fly at dusk at 300 foot altitude and the pilots wear night vision goggles when they’re applying the pesticides. Sounds safe. Sign me up!

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We finished off the GREAT tour with a delicious fish fry of tilapia, salad, hushpuppies, cookies, sweet tea, cole slaw, THE WORKS. Yum!

What a trip!!

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