The virtual Mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Convention (MAFVC) Spanish session will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 10, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. It will be led by Mario Miranda Sazo, Cornell Extension, and Sergio Rosario and Silvia Rosario, co-owners of Rosario Brothers. This program is supported by a Penn State Extension Science to Practice Grant. Details on registering for the virtual MAFVC session are available at http://www.mafvc.org.

Miranda will discuss "Keys to Success in Planting, Establishing, and Tree Training in Orchards During the First Year."

Miranda is a fruit Extension specialist with the Cornell Cooperative Extension Lake Ontario Fruit Program. In this position, he manages a series of research and educational projects aimed at solving practical fruit production problems in order to increase the profitability of the state's fruit industry. His program is largely field-oriented and of an applied nature with significant Extension outreach. He works in nine areas to accomplish his goals: orchard systems, rootstocks, tree nursery production, maximum new tree growth, crop load and canopy management, irrigation/fertigation/soil nutrient management, orchard mechanization for higher labor efficiency, Spanish-speaking training, and strategic thinking and innovation for future adoption of digital agriculture technologies.

Before Miranda joined the Cornell Extension team, he worked as a product development manager for BASF in Latin America and Harris Moran Seed Company in California, and he managed the IR-4 field residue program at the Department of Horticulture, Cornell University. His earned a Bachelor of Science in agronomy and business and a Master of Science in horticulture and agronomy from University of California, Davis. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in nutrition physiology and management at Cornell University.

In an interactive presentation titled "Sergio and Silvia - The Rosario Team," the Rosarios will share their professional journey as Latino/Hispanic agriculture entrepreneurs in western New York. They will also provide managerial and workforce development tips for creating efficient and effective teams. Their eldest son, Sergio Jr., who is poised to assume future management of the business, will also join the webinar discussion.

Originally from the State of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, the Rosarios began their journey as a married couple more than 20 years ago. They are graduates of the 2019 Cornell Small Farms program for bilingual professional development, titled the Master Class program. In this program, Latino/a farm business owners, managers, and employees share their collective knowledge while building Spanish-speaking networks within the region.

Before coming to New York, the couple worked in tomato fields in Florida for three years. In 2000, Sergio and Silvia moved to western New York to work for Lamont Fruit Farms, where they learned cutting-edge practices for high-density apple production. They started their custom grafting and tree pruning business in 2015, and they now also produce trees for their own nursery.