AgNet DEMO

Category: Avocado

  • Decision-Support Tool Using HiPerGator May Help Manage Devastating Avocado Disease

    Jonathan Crane, professor of horticultural sciences, inspecting an avocado tree at the Tropical Research and Education Center.

    November 18, 2020

    By: Brad Buck, bradbuck@ufl.edu, 352-875-2641 (cell)

    UF/IFAS researchers are working on a decision-support app to help policy makers and growers decide the best regional treatment options for laurel wilt disease, which is challenging Florida’s $35 million-a-year avocado crop.

    Laurel wilt disease is spread by several ambrosia beetle vectors. People, whether they grow avocados or not, can spread the beetles when they move infested wood products – for example, firewood and wood-turner wood — UF/IFAS researchers say. UF/IFAS researchers are trying to get all of this spreading under control.

    To help develop the app, scientists are using the HiPerGator, a supercomputer on the main University of Florida campus in Gainesville, to analyze massive amounts of data.

    “This network analysis app will aid policy makers by providing input about how such things as subsidies or penalties for disease management are likely to affect growers’ management decisions and resulting disease spread,” said Berea Etherton, a doctoral student in plant pathology in the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. “Better regional management as a whole benefits individual growers.”

    Scientists hope to gain better regional control of laurel wilt through machine learning for analysis of satellite images. Those analyses train an artificial intelligence system to recognize patterns from remotely sensed images, said Etherton, who’s conducting the research under the supervision of her advisor, UF/IFAS Professor Karen Garrett.

    “In the next steps for the project, we plan to integrate satellite image analysis and disease recognition to support decision makers considering the best management strategies,” Garrett said. “The computational demands of the machine-learning tools in this project will benefit from the new HiPerGator resources.”

    The UF supercomputer will allow for rapid analysis of large data sets, Etherton said. This project is designed to pass the benefits of the HiPerGator on to the growers, as decision support will include input from satellite images and high-speed processing.

    Florida avocados are grown almost entirely in Miami-Dade County. Many consumers love to eat them in a variety of ways, including in guacamole dip. But even as laurel wilt disease damages avocado trees, demand for the fruit continues to rise in global markets. According to UF/IFAS economists, about 80% of Florida’s avocados are sold outside Florida and the industry has an economic impact of about $100 million to the state’s economy.

    Garrett and Etherton are working with researchers at the UF/IFAS Tropical Research and Education Center and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They all hope the app will help control laurel wilt on a regional basis.

    “Any technology that is accessible, efficacious and economical and helps producers combat laurel wilt is welcome,” said Jonathan Crane, UF/IFAS professor of horticulture and a tropical fruit Extension specialist at TREC.

    “Managing crop diseases is challenging, because the success of one grower’s management strategies often depends on how well other growers are managing the disease.  We are working to contribute to regional management strategies,” Garrett said.

  • Be Careful How You Store Certain Fruits, Vegetables

    Peaches are sensitive to cold temperatures.

    By Clint Thompson

    University of Florida post-harvest plant physiologist Jeff Brecht cautions consumers about putting some fruit and vegetables in their refrigerators. Quality commodities like tomatoes, melons, avocados and peaches are chilling sensitive. Consumers need to be wary that too much cooling can affect the quality of certain produce.

    “I hear complaints about all of those where people say, ‘They’re tasteless. They’re not like I remember in the garden when I grew up.  They don’t have flavor.’ What it really is, those are all chilling sensitive, and they’ve been exposed to low temperatures for too long. They stop producing the aroma,” Brecht said. “The aroma is a super important component of flavor. That’s what it really is when you hear people complain about tasteless tomatoes is because they’ve been chilled. It’s a big problem that we have.”

    Clearing Up a Misunderstanding

    Brecht said there is a misunderstanding on the part of consumers about how best to handle different fruits and vegetables when they have them in their possession. Many of the vegetables can be injured by exposure to temperatures that are too low. Sensitivity is especially a concern for immature produce.

    “You can keep them too long in your refrigerator because you’ll actually start to compromise the quality,” Brecht said. “Even though I preach cooling, cooling, lower the temperature to maintain the quality, there’s a whole lot of fruits where you can’t go too far with that. That limits what you can do to keep them in good shape after harvest. You can’t cool them right down to 32 degrees or something like that, which you can do with a strawberry.”

    He also encourages consumers to buy local as much as possible. They’re not only providing much-needed business for producers amid tough financial times, they’re also getting fresher fruit.

    “Consumers are getting even better quality that way because they’re going to pick it up at the farm, take it home and probably eat it within a day or two. I would encourage people to patronize the direct sales farming operation to whatever extent they can,” Brecht said.

  • FDACS Agricultural and Seafood Availability Notice

    fdacs

    (HCCGA) — FDACS has created the attached form for producers to fill out with their product availability. Once submitted, FDACS will utilize to forward to their Fresh From Florida contacts, as well as the Florida Department of Corrections, food banks and make connections with other State Departments of Agriculture in hopes of providing market opportunities to move product during the Coronavirus pandemic.

    Producers, please download the attached Ag and Seafood Availability form and submit

    Source: Highlands County Citrus Growers Association