Determining Predictive Social Factors in the General Florida Population for the Adoption of Seasonal Fertilizer Blackout Periods in Florida.

With eutrophication and fish kills in major water bodies in Florida, much blame has focused on turfgrass as an important contributor of nitrogen and phosphorus through inappropriate fertilization. Florida allows each county and municipality to create their own ordinances related to the fertilization of urban lawns and landscapes. Following a state model, the majority of these ordinances have the same general format, defining issues such as zones of fertilization, application practices, training, licensing, and enforcement. The section of these ordinances that has proved the most controversial focuses on timing of fertilizer application, with a sub-set of localized ordinances prohibiting the application of any nitrogen or phosphorus during the rainy summer months (i.e. “fertilizer blackout period”). Unfortunately, research suggests that the summer months are the period of the least nutrient leaching, and as such, these policies may actually encourage environmentally inappropriate fertilization practices. In December 2015, the UF/IFAS Center for Public Issues Education (PIE) Center conducted a survey of the general Florida population. As the adoption of blackout ordinances is not necessarily based on science, survey questions aimed to identify social factors that can serve as predictors for how this blackout policy spreads to new counties and municipalities. This research project explored the relationship between living in a county or municipality under a blackout with levels of resident education, resident income, living in a homeowner’s association, sentiments about turfgrass, turfgrass maintenance practices, and trust in landscape science in order to determine if these variables serve as predictive factors for a county or municipality adopting a fertilizer blackout period.