Dr. Michael Dukes and I have revamped our approach to water use . We ’re expanding what we mean by landscape to include product agriculture .
by Jack Payne , University of Florida ’s aged vice chairperson for agriculture and natural resource and loss leader of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
The new Center for Land Use Efficiency , or CLUE , does not have a single home base . It ’s in various campus locations where we do water work , deal out Florida Friendly Landscaping , or search for less resource - intensive ways to farm food and foliage . It ’s on the web athttps://clue.ifas.ufl.edu/.
CLUE is a guide on melodic theme . You do n’t need money to come up with a great idea .
Good affair , too , because soon after we brainstorm CLUE , we had to close down the Center for Landscape Conservation and Ecology ( CLCE ) when its legislative funding dried up .
This drive us to pass the annual Urban Landscape Summit . We also lose the postgraduate students who explore issues which matter to FNGLA and the landscape industry FNGLA defend . It empties the innovation fund which award startup grants to scientists who work on lawns and landscape .
What we still do have is a sight . We even have some financial support go away to start out to implement that vision , direct primarily toward agrarian good management practice – those method acting which are less resource - intensive . And when we say agriculture , we include the green industry .
As Michael and I see it , there are three places IFAS needs to focus our efforts on water . For one , Florida ’s farms and nurseries calculate on sufficient and unobjectionable water . A second is planned communities . The third is millions of lawn and landscapes , with owners who want them green .
Michael ’s vision was to contribute these three arena under one administrative umbrella . The previous gist did not include farming water enjoyment in its work . CLUE does . It will follow landscape environmental science by :
For a long time , we separated our oeuvre on water by craw . BMPs if you grow intellectual nourishment or greenhouse crop . Florida Friendly Landscaping if you grow landscape painting plants or sod . Now it ’s all in a individual more - crop - per - fall shop .
Two things will keep this work perish through the passage we ’re in now .
The first is impulse . The old nerve center perch the fuse for Eban Bean ’s study , for example , on what landscape painting soils postulate to use water most expeditiously . base on his promising early advance , his work is likely to continue to pull in financing no matter the aegis under which it operate .
The 2nd is seek financing in Tallahassee in 2020 to progress Eban ’s piece of work by demonstrating the use of compost and other materials , as well as scientifically - testify horticultural methods , to better irrigation for residential yards . We could use your help to communicate how important this is to Florida . Ask Ben Bolusky for particular .
Do n’t get me wrong , the budget cut hurt . FNGLA was a fundamental player in identify the need for the CLCE more than a decade ago and then helping gain the body politic funding to launch it in 2006 . It pains me to inform you we ’ve had to sunset it .
Ideas do n’t have to decease when money does . In fact , scarcity has a way of inspire creativity .
To implement what resolution from this creativeness , though , undeniably need money . We will remain to look for for fashion to partner with government and industriousness . That ’s how the realm - grant model works , after all .
Let ’s not fall behind momentum because of an interruption in funding . Together , let ’s make the instance to bring regime back into the fold of partnership . We do n’t make out if we ’ll succeed in 2020 . But if we do , we ’ll have a much strong cue .
For more informationFNGLA1533 Park Center DriveOrlando , FL 32835 - 5705Toll - Free : +1 ( 800 ) 375 - 3642 tetraiodothyronine : +1 ( 407 ) 295 - 7994F : +1 ( 407 ) 295 - 1619Email:[email protected]www.fngla.org
