Ag Tour

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. Last year a couple of my friends at the Sebring Historical Society told me all about an “ag tour” that they went on. It sounded very interesting. They boarded a bus early in the morning, and they went on a guided tour of various agricultural sites around the region. In the middle of it all – a big steak lunch. I was intrigued. Travel & Food together. Two of my favorite pastimes.

The tours are limited to the winter season – January, February, and March – on the last Thursday of each month. They start at 8 AM and end at 5 PM. They are hosted by UF IFAS Extension – which stands for University Of Florida Institute Of Food And Agricultural Sciences. They have Extension offices in all 67 of Florida’s counties. (I’m in Highlands County.)

I didn’t get a chance to sign-up for any of the remaining tours last season (2025), and then I pretty much forgot about them during the “off-season”.

Last month at our Sebring Historical Society board meeting we were discussing an upcoming event when one of our board members pointed out that the date of that event conflicts with an “ag tour”.

Once he said that – bells started ringing in my mind. I went home that night and began looking up the ag tours to get more information on them. One was coming up on the last Thursday of February. I read the itinerary. I was determined to be on it. Less than a week later I actually drove to the Extension Office (for the first time ever) – 10 miles away from home – to sign-up for it and pay for it ($100).

Thursday February 26TH 2026 was the date of the tour, and I arrived back at the Extension office (formally it’s the Bert J. Harris, Jr. Agricultural Center Highlands County). I arrived about 40 minutes before the start of the tour. Apparently – that wasn’t early enough, as there were already several dozen people there before me. I checked-in, I retrieved my big bag of goodies / freebies from the various sponsors of the tour, and I got on the 56-passenger luxury coach.

We departed promptly at 8 AM on a mostly cloudy and chilly morning. We took an unusual route to our first of six stops – perhaps by design. We headed south briefly along U.S. 27 before turning west into Hardee County, and then north into Polk County. It was all two-lane backroads (after U.S. 27) – through the countryside – with farmlands on both sides. Many of the farms didn’t look too good after numerous frosts and freezes. Our UF IFAS hostess narrated and answered questions along the way. She was very knowledgeable and informative.

Our first stop was a few miles east of Fort Meade along U.S. 98. We visited the Dundee Citrus Growers Association (CGA) Citrus Under Protective Screen (CUPS) farm. I’ve actually driven by it several times over the past few years while heading to and from Tampa, Bartow, and Lakeland. It’s easy to spot along the old highway. It’s about 500 acres of screened farms with citrus growing inside – protected by the deadly psyllid insect. All of the sun gets in. All of the rain gets in. But the psyllids stay out. The screens were installed in 2022 and 2023, and the first trees were planted during the Fall of 2023. They grow red grapefruit under the Florida Rubies brand name.

Their grapefruits are available in many grocery stores and also online. They ship to anywhere in the U.S.A. and Canada.

Fun Facts: Their farm is at a high elevation for Central Florida – 215 feet above sea level. You can see it from aircraft flying above at cruising altitude. (Look for white landscape instead of tan.)

Next #TravelThursday – The Ag Tour returns to Highlands County to another citrus grove. I’ll introduce biochar to you. And then we’ll head into historic downtown Avon Park to enjoy a hot and delicious steak lunch. Travel & Food together. Let’s keep traveling together.