After Flooding, Test Your Well Water
If your private well was damaged or flooded due to hurricane or other heavy storm activity, your well water may not be safe to drink. Well water should not be used for drinking, cooking purposes, making ice, brushing teeth or bathing until it is tested by a certified...
Marine Drifting Fish of the Florida Panhandle
Is this what it sounds like? Fish that do not swim, but drift? Well… yes and no. They can swim, just not very well – they do better by drifting. The word used most often for any drifting creature in the sea is plankton. Plankton literally means “drifter” or...
CFAP 2 Will Cover an Additional 40 Commodities; Including Farmed Molluscan Shellfish
On September 17, 2020, President Trump and US Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, announced a second phase of an important program assisting America’s farmers. The Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP 1) was originally announced in April 2020 and now CFAP 2...
Oh, What a Night – Sally Storms into the Panhandle
It began easy enough – a tropical storm making landfall between Louisiana and Mississippi. Northwest Florida could expect some rain and rising water. Okay… A few hours later the new landfall was predicted to be the Mississippi-Alabama coastline. This changes things...
Meet the Author: Ray Bodrey
Ray Bodrey is in his fifth year as the Gulf County Extension Director. Ray is originally from the “Watermelon Capital of the World” – Cordele, GA, where he grew up on a family row crop farm. His extension areas are Agriculture, Natural Resources (including Sea Grant...
The Science of Sharks
When one thinks of the Emerald Coast, visions of sparkling water, baby-powder beaches, rental houses and high-rises interwoven with seafood and pizza restaurants appear. The coast is dotted with fishing boats, pirate ships and dolphin cruises and the beaches are...
Marine Open Water Fish of the Florida Panhandle
There is a lot of blue out there… a whole lot of blue. Miles of open water in the Gulf with nowhere to hide… except amongst yourselves. Their blue colored bodies, aerodynamically shaped like bullets with stiff angular fins, can zip along in this vast blue openness...
Meet the Author: Rick O’Connor
Rick joined the University of Florida IFAS extension team in 2012 after 28 years in public education. He is the Sea Grant Extension Agent in Escambia County and his program focus areas are on estuaries and science literacy. His primary projects involve training...
Marine Bottom Fish of the Florida Panhandle
We continue our series on estuarine and marine fish and wildlife with fish who live on the bottom. The Gulf of Mexico is a huge ecosystem. With 600,000 m2 and an average depth of 6000 feet, there is a lot of “blue” out there for fish to find a home. But oddly...
Overcup Oak – The Best Native Landscape Tree You’ve Never Seen
Haunting alluvial river bottoms and creek beds across the Deep South, is a highly unusual oak species, Overcup Oak (Quercus lyrata). Unlike nearly any other oak, and most sane people, Overcups occur deep in alluvial swamps and spend most of their lives with their...