Last Updated on October 16, 2017 by Caroline Warwick

Wondering what the latest happenings are at MREC? Take a few minutes to read the latest update, courtusey of our Center Director Dr. Roger Kjelgren.

As the relatively new director of the Mid Florida Research and Education Center, I still have the luxury of being able to existentially step outside the day-to-day whirlwind of faculty and staff generating goals, creating knowledge, and teaching that knowledge to our industry and general public stakeholders to consider the journey travelled and the path ahead.

MREC and its wonderful people are resilient, facing down then moving past economic downturns, manufactured budget crises, frequent leadership changes, and hurricanes. The resilience is the foundation for MREC to adapt to a changing world of the foliage industry, the emergence of urban food and beverage crop production as a key constituency, and the expanding role of sustainable urban landscaping, especially water conservation.

MREC’s roadmap for that path has started to come together during a July retreat led by Dr. Ed Osborne from the IFAS Department of Agricultural Education and Communications. From this retreat emerged a draft vision statement: To create and share knowledge of high value plants so that producers and consumers can pursue fulfilling livelihoods and lifestyles in Florida and beyond.

I hope this vision statement can inspire you who have taken the time to read this blog to stay tuned as MREC figures out how to translates that vision into meaningful action

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