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Better with Butterflies: Buckeye

Welcome back to our monthly blog in which we discuss a few interesting facts about butterflies in general and a specific type of butterfly each month. Of the six known butterfly families, this month we will address the last two, the brush footed and skipper families. Brush footed butterflies are the largest of the families…

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It’s Corn!- Growing the Florida Home Garden

More than a big lump of knobs and juice, sweet corn is a favorite crop for residential gardeners in Florida. Being native to the Americas, this plant has become a staple of our diet and the centerpiece of a good backyard barbeque. With corn in your garden, I can’t imagine a more beautiful thing! Planting…

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Reclusive celebrity reptile spied in Florida!

Star spotted on Florida coasts! Heads up, fans of Florida’s celebrity nonnative herps! There’s a niche member of the scaly glitterati you may have missed in all the furor over Florida’s top-billing nonnative reptiles. Trendsetters you already know Naturally shutters click, flashbulbs pop, and bulletins arrive almost weekly about the exploits of the various enormous invasive…

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St. John’s Wort – Wild Weeds

Wild Weeds – Weed of the Month St. John’s Wort Hypericum tetrapetalum St. John’s Wort (photo by Stacey Matrazzo) St. John’s Wort is an evergreen perennial shrub found in Florida. Blooms typically appear in late spring but can be found throughout the year. Flowers are bright lemon-yellow and showy, with four petals and four sepals. Stems…

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Biological Control and Pesticides

Have you heard of biological control? This is when a live organism is used in the management strategy of a pest population. An example would be when ladybugs are released in a garden for aphid control. I was recently at the UF/IFAS Short Course for Aquatic Pests and I tried to describe to pesticide applicators…

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Weekly “What is it?”: Gopher apple

Gopher apple plants have woody stems and expand via underground runners. They are mostly evergreen and composed of nondescript leaves year round. Photo credit: Carrie Stevenson, UF IFAS Extension On first glance at a gopher apple, one might think there were live oak leaves dispersed across the dunes. On closer inspection, though, you’d find individual leaf…

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Growing a Green Thumb; Starting with Seeds

There may be instances when you want to sow seed in containers instead of directly sowing into the ground or a raised bed. Some vegetables easily adapt to being transplanted. Starting seeds in smaller containers and then moving them up to a larger container or transplanting directly into the garden might be an option for…

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Tropical Girdlepod (Mitracarpus hirtus)

Jay Capasso, UF/IFAS Columbia County. Marc Frank, University of Florida Herbarium. Paulette Tomlinson, UF/IFAS Columbia County. The University of Florida Herbarium recently identified tropical girdlepod (Mitracarpus hirtus) for the first time from Columbia County. This weed has been identified in 23 other Florida counties including many of those in the panhandle and north/central peninsula. The…

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Could this be Avocado Sunblotch Viroid (ASBV)?

Recently, Collier County Extension received an email about strange looking spots on an avocado fruit. A sample was submitted to the UF/IFAS Tropical Research and Education Center Plant Diagnostic Clinic to figure out exactly what was causing the deformation. The TREC-PDC serves farmers, greenhouse producers, homeowners, nurseries, and others in agriculture and the green industries to diagnose…

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Global Food Systems Institute to take land-grant mission worldwide

The University of Florida has announced the creation of the UF/IFAS Global Food Systems Institute, which will expand the scope of the existing Food Systems Institute to achieve global preeminence in all three components of the land-grant mission. Created in 2020, the Food Systems Institute brought together researchers from across disciplines to tackle challenges in…

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