What's New
- Flatwoods Citrus Best Management Practice: Minimizing Direct Deposition of Pesticides into Waterways
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Details how to best avoid and lessen water contamination due to pesticide use
- Fertilizer Application Best Management Practices for Citrus Grove Workers
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Details how to analyze for best fertilization application/use, safety, essential elements information, and possible environmental issues. Sections include quizzes over given information.
- Pesticide Application Best Management Practices for the Citrus Grove Worker
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details different pest control methods, safety, and application processes and tips
- Herbicide Application Best Management Practices for Citrus Grove Workers
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describes safety practices and application techniques
- Pesticide Safety and Personal Protective Equipment for Citrus Grove Workers
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Details basic safety precautions for those working with pesticides.
- Understanding the Pesticide Label for Citrus Grove Workers
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When used properly and according to their labels, pesticides can control, destroy, or repel pests such as weeds, insects, rodents, birds, fungi, bacteria or other organisms that cause loss or damage, or may be harmful to people's health. Pesticides handled in a careless manner can endanger the health of the applicator, other people, animals, plants, or the environment.
- Citrus Tree Stresses: Effects on Growth and Yield
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Although Florida is known for its plentiful sunshine and rainfall, commercial citrus can experience stress at certain times of the year whenever growth conditions are not optimal. For example, drought stress can occur whenever soil water is not adequate or whenever the evaporative demand of the air is high. Drought is one of the most formidable stresses. It alters a tree's ability to take up nutrients from soil and changes the way the tree produces roots, shoots, leaves and fruit. To strive for consistently high commercial yields, grove managers must incorporate strategies to minimize the negative effects of drought. The objectives of this document are to: a)Explain how citrus trees respond to changes in availability of water and nutrients; b)Discuss plant-stress situations and their effects on citrus growth and productivity; and c)Discuss the balance between roots and shoots. The target audience for this document dealing with citrus responses to drought conditions includes: Certified Crop Advisers, citrus producers, agrochemical and equipment industry representatives, and other parties interested in citrus management practices.
- Your Florida Dooryard Citrus Guide - Pruning
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Although large machines prune closely planted trees in commercial citrus groves on a regular basis, dooryard citrus need not be pruned at all. There are exceptions: aesthetic purposes, to prevent shading of other plants, to prevent soilborne diseases, to remove cold-damaged limbs, and to rejuvenate old trees with reduced vigor, twig and small branch dieback, and small fruit.
- Microsprinkler Irrigation for Cold Protection of Florida Citrus
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More than nearly any other factor, freezes have caused some of the most dramatic changes in fruit supply, availability, and price. Thus, any method that provides some cold protection can be of major importance to citrus growers. Many cold protection methods have been used over the years. These methods include heaters, wind machines, fog generators, high volume over-tree irrigation, and low volume undertree microsprinkler irrigation. Low volume undertree microsprinkler irrigation is an alternative method for partial frost protection and can be more affordable than other methods (Fig. 1). Microsprinklers have proven effective during several freeze nights in central Florida tests. In addition to frost protection, microsprinklers can provide effective year-round irrigation
- Dwarfing and Freeze Hardiness Potential of Trifoliate Orange Rootstocks
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Details the usefulness of freeze-hardy rootstocks in citrus growing.
- Citrus Cold Weather Protection and Irrigation Scheduling Tools Using Florida Automated Weather Network (FAWN) Data
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With a crop value of $597 million in 2006/07, citrus is the most important horticultural crop grown in Florida. The 2.4 million tons of annual citrus production in Florida accounts for approximately 75 and 20% of United States and world citrus production, respectively. Agricultural water use has become a greater concern for citrus production in Florida due to increasing competition between agricultural, commercial, and residential use of limited water supplies. Tools have been developed for the FAWN that will assist citrus growers in improving frost protection and irrigation scheduling while saving water. These tools are the Cold Protection Toolkit and the Citrus Microsprinkler Irrigation Scheduler. Use of these tools, potential benefits to citrus growers and water savings are described below.
- Chilling Injury of Grapefruit and its Control
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Details Chilling Injury and its prevention.
- Hurricanes and the Harvesting Decisions
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This paper addresses the generic question of whether a crop should be harvested after sustaining significant loss. This paper provides a citrus grower with a roadmap to determine the economic criteria for harvesting the remaining crop. Conversely, when is it in the best economic interest for a grower to abandon the remaining crop? While the hurricanes of 2004 motivated this paper, the analysis is applicable to any situation arising from natural disasters, pest infestations, or collapsing market prices.
- Hurricane Preparedness For Citrus Groves
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Any hurricane or severe tropical storm poses a threat to all of south Florida's shallow-rooted citrus trees. Strong winds blow fruit off trees with larger fruit being most susceptible to loss or damage; however, tree damage resulting from wind and 12-20 inches of rain could be the most severe and lasting injury. In addition to rain, high tides caused by wind blowing toward land may cause saltwater flooding several miles inland. It also may be caused by the damaging effect of high tides raising the level of water in bays, estuaries, and rivers and preventing rainfall from running off groves. While a hurricane has the potential to inflict heavy damage on any grove, growers who have developed hurricane plans prior to the event have the best chance of minimizing losses.
- Determining the Value of an Orchard Tree
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Determining the value of an orchard tree that has been destroyed by natural or unnatural causes is required for tax and insurance purposes and for Federal/State agricultural assistance programs. Coming up with reliable estimates is not simple and can be very expensive when hiring consultants. The purpose of this article is to provide step-by-step instructions for using the agecon-trec software program to estimate the value of a tree that has been destroyed.
- Needle Rusts of Pines
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Describes the biology, management and prevention (with supplementing pictures) of fungi in the genus Coleosporium, responsible for needle rusts.
- Needle Necrosis of Norfolk Island Pine
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Describes the needle necrosis of Norfolk Island pines, caused by the Collectotrichum derridis fungus (with supplementary pictures)
- Needlecasts of Pines in Florida
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Describes the Needlecast fungi affecting Florida pines
- Needle Cast of Pines
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describes and details the Needle casts that plague Florida's pine trees
- Cercosporidium Blight of Leyland Cypress and Related Conifers
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Profiles Cercosporidium Blight and the conifer trees it affects
- Ash Rust
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Describes the characteristics and life cycle of Puccinia sparganioides, the fungus responsible for Ash rust, and its prevention and management.
- Anthracnose of Acacia
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Describes (with supplementing pictures) the Anthracnose fungus that plagues Acacia trees and its management and prevention
- Anthracnose of acacia in Florida: occurrence and fungicidal control
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Describes the Anthracnose fungus of Acacia trees in Florida and its prevention and management.
- Insects and Diseases: Important Problems of Florida's Forest and Shade Tree Resources
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Lists several diseases and insects of different tree types
- Common Causes of Oak Mortality
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Discusses the common causes, and some solutions, of oak tree maladies and death in Florida
- Sick Trees? Tree Doctoring Has Its Limits... Get a Second Informed Opinion
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Details how to pick knowledgeable, credible tree surgeons
- Forest Health Fundamentals
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discusses what constitutes 'forest health' and the application of this term to Florida's forests
- Florida's Outdoor Burning and Forest Fire Laws
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Details basic outdoor burning laws to help prevent forest fire
- Florida's Forest Resources
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Details Florida Forest Resources action plan for 2006-2010 to increase the amount of forested land
- Ecological and Economic Consequences of the 1998 Florida Wildfires
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The objective of this project was to assess the economic effects of catastrophic forest wildfires in Florida and various causal factors contributing to these fires, principal among them the use of prescribed burning. We used static and dynamic analyses at several spatial and temporal scales drawing on a combination of operational, survey and other data sources. One analysis estimated the economic effects of the 1998 wildfires in northeastern Florida, proximally caused by an unusually dangerous weather pattern associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle.
