Speakers in Florida - Tropical Fruits

[Mr. Clean]

One of the challenges for some fruit related organizations is to finding interesting speakers.  This post is to provide a list of potential speakers for various clubs in Florida. Please feel free to add your name, if you give fruit related presentations.

Mark Young ("Mr. Clean") - President, Palm Beach Chapter of the Rare Fruit Council.  Mark currently has two presentations:  "Tropical Fruit For The Backyard" and "Micro Irrigation For The Home".   His presentations focus on practical application related to fruit trees, i.e. trouble-free trees that produce fruit.  Mark has over 110 fruit trees and plants in his yard, with over 70 mango trees.  He has spoken at various organizations.  www.mangosbymail.com  Mr. Young is a lawyer concentrating in business and construction legal issues.  http://www.asbuiltlaw.com/ 

Alex Salazar ("Squam256") - Owner of Tropical Acres Farms.  https://www.facebook.com/TropicalAcresFarms/  Alex has over 250 varieties of mangos and is a leading expert on mangos in Florida.  He has several presentations and has traveled through out the state of Florida giving presentations.

Chris Rollins - Former Director of Fruit & Spice Park (for about 20 years) - Chris has a list of about 20 presentations that he can give.  Mr. Rollins in a wealth of knowledge on tropical fruits and edible plants.  He introduced the Borneo Red jackfruit to Florida and lead numerous international fruit trips.  He knew all of the "giants" of tropical fruits, such as Bill Whitman and Julia Morton.  He currently resides in North Carolina and is growing apples and paw paws, but visits south Florida in January or February, where he gives presentations at about 20 organizations during the month.  Since Chris is traveling from such a far away, it would be nice if the host organization could provide him lodging the night of the presentation.

Har Mahdeem ("Guanabanas")- Har worked for many years at Zills High Performance, including grafting trees.  He has vast knowledge of fruit trees.   Har has a business specializing in pruning fruit trees and offers top working services as well.

Mike Winterstein - USDA.  Mike is the curator of the USDA's plant germplasm repository at the USDA facility in Coral Gables, Florida.  The USDA collection includes over 400 varieties of mango.

Richard Campbell, PhD - Dr. Campbell is former Curator of Fairchild Botanical Gardens.  Richard is author of a number of books on mangos and jackfruit and a leading expert on mangos.

Jonathan Crane, PhD - Dr. Crane is a researcher of tropical fruits for TREC.  He is a leading expert in tropical fruits. 

Noris Ledemsa, PhD - Dr. Ledesma is the head curator of Fairchild Botanical Gardens.  Noris is a co-author on a number of books on mangos and jackfruit.  She is a leading expert on mangos.

Noel Ramos  ("FloridaGreenMan") - Noel grew up on his family's owned coffee plantation in Puerto Rico.  Mr. Ramos has an amazing presentation on coffee.  Noel is knowledgeable about many fruits and has fruit contacts in Puerto Rico.

Alina Campbell, PhD - Dr. Campbell is a researcher on Cocoa at the USDA facility at Chapman Field.  No relation to Richard Campbell.  She has a presentation on Cocoa, the chocolate producing fruit.

Jorge J. Zaldivar - Guavonia Guava Grove (Redland, FL)  GuavaRico.com  Jorge has a very technical presentation on guavas and is a wealth of knowledge on guava.

Cindy Weinstein with Green Sea Farms (Tampa, FL) has a presentation on pomegranate.

Gary Zill - Zills High Performance (Boynton Beach, FL).  Zills only sales wholesale to nurseries and landscapers.  Gary is a pre-eminent expert on mangos.  Mr. Zill pioneered the 10,000 seed Zill selective mango breeding program.  It can be difficult to schedule Gary as a speaker.

Richard Wilson - Owner of Excalibur Nurseries (Lake Worth, FL).  http://www.excaliburfruittrees.com/  Richard makes annual trips to Asia searching for new fruit trees and plants to introduce into the US.  Mr. Wilson is a jovial guy, with a wealth of knowledge of fruit trees.  It can be difficult to schedule Richard as a speaker.

Erik Tietig -  VP at Pine Island Nursieries (Homestead, FL).  http://www.tropicalfruitnursery.com/  A wealth of knowledge on tropical fruits as a co-owner of one of the largest fruit tree nurseries in south Florida.  It may be difficult get Erik to travel farther north than Broward County.

Robert - Robert Is Here.   www.robertishere.com 

Ray Austin - Business Manager-Seed & Crop Protection at Winfields Solutions (fertilizer company owned by Land O Lakes).  (Boynton Beach, FL). https://www.winfieldunited.com/   Ray worked 20+ years in agriculture.  He has a presentation on plant nutrition.

It is customary to give the speakers a small honorarium.  If the speaker is traveling from a different county, it is nice to give them a little extra to off-set travel costs.   Additional names will be added, as I remember them.

[Squam256]

Alex has over 420 varieties

Thanks for the props Mr. Clean. But I only have 250 varieties

[murahilin]

Lol at the self promotion.

[kalan]

The only downside to this: the fine people at Zill's high performance are gonna be pissed when they discover that Har has been the one "grating" all the damned trees.
Keith

[bsbullie]

One of the challenges for some fruit related organizations is to finding interesting speakers.  This post is to provide a list of potential speakers for various clubs in Florida. Please feel free to add your name, if you give fruit related presentations.


Richard Wilson - Owner of Excalibur Nurseries (Lake Worth, FL).  http://www.excaliburfruittrees.com/  Richard makes annual trips to Asia searching for new fruit trees and plants to introduce into the US.  Ms. Wilson is a jovial guy, with a wealth of knowledge of fruit trees.  It can be difficult to schedule Richard as a speaker.

Not sure Ms. Wilson will be happy to know she has been labeled as a jovial guy either.

[Mr. Clean]

The only downside to this: the fine people at Zill's high performance are gonna be pissed when they discover that Har has been the one "grating" all the damned trees.
Keith

Thanks to all for the updates/suggestions.   I didn't say Har was the ONLY person grafting trees, but that Har has extensive experience grafting fruit trees. 

[FruitFreak]

The only downside to this: the fine people at Zill's high performance are gonna be pissed when they discover that Har has been the one "grating" all the damned trees.
Keith

Thanks to all for the updates/suggestions.   I didn't say Har was the ONLY person grafting trees, but that Har has extensive experience grafting fruit trees.

I think he was referring to the spelling.

You could also list Dr. Stephen Brady and Stephen Cucura

[Mr. Clean]

The only downside to this: the fine people at Zill's high performance are gonna be pissed when they discover that Har has been the one "grating" all the damned trees.
Keith

Thanks to all for the updates/suggestions.   I didn't say Har was the ONLY person grafting trees, but that Har has extensive experience grafting fruit trees.

I think he was referring to the spelling.

You could also list Dr. Stephen Brady and Stephen Cucura

I don't know them; please post some information about them.

[CapeCoralGuy]

Thanks for the great info Mr. Clean.

[Vernmented]

I just had Keith Zimmerman speak at the Manatee Rare Fruit Council last night and he put together a really great presentation on edible palms. I figured I would put this out here since it can be a pain to find new and interesting speakers at times. He is very knowledgable and can field all sorts of questions palm related outside of the presentation as well.

If you are interested shoot him an email.

keitht.zimmermann@gmail.com

Highly recommended!

[MameyDisco]

Emailed South Florida Palm Society (SFPS) President to try and book him, I suggested the Rare Fruit Council International (RFCI), Miami be invited as well to make it a joint meeting. Vernmented, thanks for the tip and for posting in this thread, much appreciated. Hope to add some later this evening when I have more time.

[MameyDisco]

Here are some of my favorites from meetings of the past 2-3 years of The Rare Fruit Council International (RFCI) Miami, Florida. I can't guarantee that everyone here is able to travel, these are just ideas from the Miami area. Although, we have welcomed various speakers from around Florida which is always nice. We have also approached non fruit topics which keeps it fun. See the list below.

I personally, highly recommend Dr. Stephen Vernon's program on Roselle and Hibiscus. Great topic not covered by many, have learned a lot from him.
Contact can be made via http://RareFruitCouncil.org

Dr. Stephen Vernon "About Roselle" (Vice President, Rare Fruit Council International RFCI, Miami, Florida)

Chris Rollins “Fruits of Tropical Asia”

Carlos De La Torre "Growing Techniques for Avocados" (Homestead, Florida) https://www.myavocadotrees.com/

Dylan Terry "Growing a Food Forest" (Ready To Grow Gardens, Miami, Florida)

John Goss "Heliconia and Ginger Plants" (Jupiter, Florida) https://www.facebook.com/JGSTROPICLANPLANTS/

Dr. George Fitzpatrick - “Making & Using High Quality Compost” (Co-Editor, Florida State Horticultural Society, FSHS)

Noris Ledesma - “Follow Cacao’s Journey Around the world & South Florida” (FTBG, Coral Gables, Florida)

Jorge J. Zaldivar "The History of Guava & Seed Introduction in Florida" (Guavonia Guava Grove, Homestead’s Redland, Florida) http://GuavaRico.com

Scott Lyons “Growing Mushrooms and Preparing Kombucha” (Sublicious Farms, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida) http://www.subfarms.com/

Alexander Salazar “Growing The Best Mangos” (Tropical Acres Farms “Sturrock Groves”, West Palm Beach, Florida) https://tropicalacresfarms.com/

Mike Heckart “Solanaceae the Nightshade Family” (Wicked Mikes Edible Plants, Miami, Florida) https://www.facebook.com/wickedmikesmiami/

Har Mahdeem “Plant Nutrition” (Palm Beach Chapter of the Rare Fruit Council International, Florida)