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!

{Tim Hiers, Superintendent} {Cute Tee Markers}

{Beautiful course} { Eek, snakeys!}

{Mock pesticide application demo}

{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.

{Very thankful for my A/C desk job…}

Second stop, Six L’s Farm.

{Fresh tater!}

{Fresh mater}

Day 3

First stop, Barron Collier/Silver Strand

{Checkout the spiderweb on the right}

{Future harvester?} {Citrus flowers}

Vanna White? ;)

{Citrus diseases - Citrus Greening, Citrus Canker}

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

{Massive tractor!}

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

{Owl Pellet} {Leftovers?}

{Lake Okeechobee from Herbert Hoover Dike}

{Hotel in Clewiston, FL}

Day 4

First stop, King Ranch (sod farm).

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.

{Crop duster} {Celery harvesting}

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

{Fresh From Florida, folks!}

{Mechanical harvesting}

Third stop, American Farms.

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

{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!

{Nervous!}

{The view from here}

{Mangrove Forrest – mosquito breeding ground when under water}

{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

{Mosquito Larvae} {Adult Mosquitos}

{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!

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!!