FIELD AND GROVE MAGAZINE
Profiling Southwest Florida’s Agribusiness Community

      If standing alone in a hot, sunny field of peppers in the middle of nowhere, collecting plant samples sounds like a good day on the job, you may like working as a crop consultant.

      Sarah Hornsby, president and owner of Agricultural Crop Consulting, Inc., likes it enough to have been in the business for 20 years, including the last 12 years owning her business based in Parrish, Fla., in Manatee County.

      Hornsby is in the business of helping her clients with insect and disease management.

      “I have a degree in biology and always had an interest in plants,” Hornsby said. After taking time off from her job as a high school teacher to raise a family, she decided to become a crop consultant instead of going back to teaching.

      “I got into it because of Dr. Will Waters, the former director of the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, which is an arm of IFAS,” she said.

      IFAS, the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida, did research and developed an organized method of scouting, Hornsby said. Scouting is the monitoring of pest populations and crop developments.

      “IFAS put together all the procedures we use, like how many samples we collect, what the economic threshold of damage is. Everything my company does is based on this research,” she said.

      Agricultural Crop Consulting, Inc. has 10 clients and some of them have several farms. Hornsby and her two employees visit each farm twice a week.

      “We specify the number of plants per acre, collect data, determine what type of insects are there and what their life stage is. We do the same kinds of things when looking at diseases. Then we make a recommendation of what material is needed to solve the problem.”

      The company also does some nutritional testing and tissue sample collection, if necessary, which is sent to an agricultural lab. Soil sampling is done to determine problems that may begin in the ground. Digitized mapping is also available for clients.

      Hornsby is a certified crop advisor, having completed a certification program administered by the American Society of Agronomy. The program requires candidates meet education and experience requirements and pass exams before they are eligible to become certified. Certified crop advisors also must adhere to a code of ethics.

      “You have to have six years of experience before even applying to take the test,” Hornsby said.

      All of her education and experience helps her determine what her clients’ problems are so she can make recommendations that save them money by saving their crops. The cost for consulting services varies widely, depending on the type of crops and generally costs from $35 to $60 per acre.

      Typical problems Hornsby sees are pests. One of the most common is the silverleaf whitefly, a pest that affects all crops, such as peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and zucchini.

      “The silverleaf whitefly transmits viruses that shut the plant down,” she said. “They are our biggest pest. The pepper weevil is the biggest problem for pepper crops. And there are all kinds of worms. But the major pests that are up-and-coming are thrips.”

      There are many kinds of thrips and new ones are emerging in Florida.

      “We have always had flower thrips in Florida,” Hornsby said. “But about two years ago, we started seeing chilli thrips and western thrips. We’re a big import state. We get a lot of insects coming in from other areas and other countries.”

      Growers must also protect their crops from disease. Hornsby said that many diseases are dependent on weather. Fungi are common diseases.

      “Some funguses are cool weather funguses and some are warm weather funguses. Botrytis, a gray mold fungus, has been a big problem this year,” she explained. “It’s been a tough weather year for us. We work like crazy from September to June, with our two growing seasons, but in Florida, there’s not a lot of agriculture happening in the summer. We pretty much have summers off.”

      Salt damage can be another major problem, Hornsby said. Growers typically try to limit freeze damage to crops by pushing water up to the surface. But sometimes fungi and salt are also pushed up to the plants’ roots. Salt is the result of fertilizer breakdown and can do a great deal of damage to plants.

      Most of Hornsby’s clients come to her through recommendations, either from IFAS or her other clients. Her company started working 500 acres in 1997 and today works 4,000 acres. When she started, she worked alone. But now she employs one to two or as many as three people.

      “It’s not for everyone,” she said. “You’re mostly alone in the middle of nowhere. Or driving to or from the middle of nowhere. But for the right person, it can be a great job.”

      With Florida known for its citrus crops, Hornsby said she does some citrus work, but it’s more of a sideline.

      “Citrus is not nearly as intensive as vegetables,” she said. “Citrus doesn’t have to be perfect, especially if it’s grown for juicing. But vegetables have to be perfect.”

      She is doing her best to make sure the vegetables grown by her clients are indeed perfect.

By Tina Giufre