Extension Service

www.monroecounty-fl.gov/extensionservices www.fb.com/MonroeCountyExtension

In the Florida Keys, The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF-IFAS) Monroe County Extension Service provides timely and relevant solutions to improve resident’s lives. The Extension Service is dedicated to bringing current, science-based answers to all local horticulture, climate change, energy, small business, and water quality questions -- for free.

The Extension Service provides programs like Master Gardener, Sustainable Floridians, Florida Keys Water Watch, Florida Master Naturalist, and other programs.

Highlights Reel

For community tips and tricks sign up for the newsletter at the website or view the blog at www.monroecounty-fl.gov/ extensionblog.

Director: Alicia Betancourt

305.292.4501 Betancourt-Alicia@ monroecounty-fl.gov www.monroe.ifas.ufl.edu Employees: 4 (3 UF and 1 Monroe County) Budget: $236,934

Heavy Sargassum Year in the Florida Keys, by Shelly Krueger

This summer you may have noticed brown seaweed floating in the water and along the shorelines of the Florida Keys. What is it, and why is it coming to shore? The seaweed is a type of open-ocean brown algae, called sargassum. Another common name for sargassum is gulfweed, and it grows on the surface of the open ocean in an area of the North Atlantic Ocean called the Sargasso Sea.

Attracting Birds in the Florida Keys, by Michelle Leonard-Mularz

Many migrating birds seek to rest and refuel in Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuges, parks, open spaces, and gardens, as the last stop before continuing southward. However, in order to attract birds and other pollinators to our landscapes, there are certain elements Florida landscapes need to provide them.

2020 PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

• Environmental Horticulture Agent Michelle Leonard-Mularz held the first Master Gardener course since 2015. Nineteen interns, representing each County District, completed the 9week training. 43 Master Gardener donated more than 2,100 hours helping residents identify and address horticultural related issues in their gardens and landscapes. This has an estimated value to Monroe County of $51,470 in volunteer services, which represents one full-time employee. • Leonard-Mularz also received a grant from Florida Wildflower Foundation to install a wildflower demonstration garden at the Historic Gato Cigar Building in Key West. The garden will not only serve as an educational tool emphasizing Florida Friendly Landscaping practices, but it will serve as a pathway for pollinators and have a visual impact in an area that is so heavily utilized by travelers, pedestrians, bicyclists, automobile drivers, and buses. The garden was installed in 2020.

• Marine Agent Shelly Krueger is co-leader for the Florida Coral Disease Outbreak Response Communications and Outreach Team, a partnership with federal agencies, that holds bi-weekly conference calls regarding the stony coral tissue loss disease outbreak in the Florida Reef Tract and the Caribbean. Krueger co-developed a program that trained more than 240 divers to identify and report the disease at Seafan.net/SEAGRANT. She also speaks about the disease on a national and international level. • Krueger is also the outreach and communication leader for the Florida Keys Community Sponge Restoration Program, in partnership with FWC and nonprofits and universities. In 2019, more than 15,000 sponges at six sponge nurseries in the Florida Keys were restored. • The Community Development Agent Alicia Betancourt completed the development of two new programs: Climate Smart Floridians is a statewide initiative, which will help people improve resilience and reduce per-sonal and household climate change impacts and The Handbook for Municipal Action on Climate Change to help small local governments be climateresilient.