Agricultural Innovations and
A Love for Florida's Natural Places
by Charles Barrett
| MY FAMILY MOVED to Florida when I was five years old. We came from upstate New York. It was the year after another brutal winter, 40 below zero. My mom said she had “had enough.” When we arrived, I remember thinking we had moved to a jungle. We were staying with some friends while we looked for a place to buy and they lived on five acres in the woods of Central Florida.
Growing up, we always played in the woods. My parents took us camping every summer and our favorite spots were the springs. I fell in love with Alexander Springs. I could imagine myself as a native and the life I would live in and around the springs. As I got older, my love for all of the natural wonders of Florida captured my attention. I became an avid surfer and loved fishing. Something that seems so outside the realm of possibility for a youngster today, but that my friends and I enjoyed immensely, was camping on the islands of the Intracoastal Waterway. We would catch fish and cook them on the fire. We followed all the rules because conservation mattered to us even as children—it’s how we were raised.
In high school, I befriended the son of a local farmer. For two consecutive summers, I helped him and his father sell their produce at our local farmers’ market. This is grueling work for very little pay, but it had a big impact on me. When I got into college, this interest in agriculture turned into a passion and after graduation, a career. Now I work as a Regional Specialized Agent for Water Resources in the Northeast District for the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. It is a mouthful, I know. What I do though, that is simple. I help our producers conserve water and make efficient use of nutrients applied to their fields. I love my job. I get to work with some of the hardest working, underappreciated folks in the U.S. I get to help make and document the positive changes that are underway that will help protect groundwater, the aquifer, springs and rivers in North Florida!
I work with growers all around the Ichetucknee. We are using GPS technology to minimize off-target applications of fertilizer, water and all agricultural inputs. We use soil moisture sensors to make sure when we irrigate it is absolutely necessary and to minimize excess water use. We are seeing big increases in water use efficiency using these sensors because we now have a way of “seeing” what is taking place in the soil. What I mean is, we can see where the roots are actively taking up water, and if the crop is going into stress, whether we can wait one more day to see if we get some rain.
Now growers are applying less water because they have more information to make a decision. This saves them money and prevents water from being pumped from the aquifer. Center pivots in North Florida have, for the most part, been upgraded to new technologies that conserve water. Old center pivots used high water pressure to push water through impact sprinklers, like the kind used on lawns or mocked in dance moves. Those old sprinklers have a much lower efficiency in terms of the amount of water pumped and how much of it makes it to the plant roots. High-pressure systems tend to make small water droplets that can evaporate or be blown off-target by wind. The new low-pressure systems produce large water droplets that fall to the ground and get to the roots.
On the nutrient management side of things, there are big advances in technology coming to a farm near you. We are working with producers to make fertilizer applications directly to the root zone using new equipment that can do this accurately and very quickly. A pilot farm has already adopted this technique of fertilizer banding and reduced their application of fertilizer while increasing his nutrient use efficiency. We have a project funded for 2021-2025 to work with our largest producers. This is how I am working to make the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time.
I am passionate about Florida’s natural wonders and I am passionate about agriculture. I see the work that needs to be done and I am putting a lot of effort toward that. I know that agricultural operations can and will make positive changes but what I do not know is if it will be enough. Every time I visit a spring, river lake or forest, I see direct human impacts. I see garbage, people disobeying signs, cigarette butts and beer cans. Sometimes I wonder if we humans can regain the respect that is needed to protect our natural places. Sometimes I wonder if there are just so many of us that the foot traffic will make it impossible to enjoy these natural places in the future. I focus on agriculture because I know those fields and green spaces are essential for aquifer recharge. The science suggests that reducing nitrogen loading alone will not bring our springs back to good health and that flow is very important. Flow can only increase with more rain, more infiltration and less pumping. We will all need to do our part to save and recover our springs and rivers.
About the photos above: Charles Barrett and other researchers at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences’ North Florida Research and Education Center – Suwannee Valley are pioneering precision fertilizer application techniques that will enable farmers to reduce the amount of nitrates that are entering our groundwater and our springs. Will these efforts be enough to make a difference? The jury is still out, but without the results of this research–which may well spark other helpful research projects and even innovations–we’ll never know.