USDA releases final citrus forecast for 2021-2022 growing season
Citrus fruit boxes were forecasted to rise by 1% in July based on the numbers released Tuesday by the USDA Agricultural Statistics Board.
The estimate put total production of citrus at 41.0 million boxes in Florida for July.
Forecasters broke down the total into 18.3 million boxes of non-Valencia oranges, which are harvested in the early and midseason, as well as some Navel orange varieties, the USDA said.
This figure showed a slight upward movement in the total compared to June. The number of Valencia oranges also rose 1% for a forecast of 22.7 million boxes.
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Florida grapefruit production
In other citrus fruits, Florida grapefruit production was forecasted to go 1% higher than a month ago for a new total of 3.33 million boxes, the USDA said.
In a breakdown of grapefruit varieties, 500,000 boxes were white, and 2.83 million boxes are of the red varieties.
The Florida all tangerine and tangelo forecast stayed the same as June’s forecast at 750,000 boxes, the USDA said.
While there have been a few bump ups in yield predications since the spring, the 2021-22 citrus season is predicted to be close to World War II-era yields, when only 40.87 million boxes were produced in the 1937-38 season.
Citrus production has sharply declined in recent decades because of urbanization, hurricanes, imports and citrus greening – a devastating bacterial disease infecting most citrus trees in Florida.
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Most citrus groves in Florida have the Huanglongbing disease
Most citrus groves in Florida have the Huanglongbing disease which cannot be reversed once a tree is infected. Citrus greening is spread by a disease-infected insect, the Asian citrus psyllid.
The disease produces trees with fruits that are green, misshapen and lacking the sweetness needed to sell to oranges to juice producers and fresh fruit citrus products to stores.
Two decades ago, the citrus industry in Florida produced 230 million boxes of oranges — 287.2 million boxes of citrus in all.
Since the disease was first detected in Florida in 2005, the state's citrus acreage has declined 40% from 748,555 acres in the 2004 season to 447,012 acres in 2018, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a previous report by The Ledger. The annual harvest had declined by more than 70 percent over that time, the report said.
Hoping to reverse the declines in the citrus industry, new varieties are being studied and some have been planted as part of the Citrus Research and Field Trial program initiated in 2019.
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The program mixes new plantings with new research on grove management practices, especially in the areas of nutrition and pest controls. To qualify for the CRAFT program and receive its 50% reimbursement, growers had to agree to the best practices developed in controlled experiments at the Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred.
In return for financial support, growers had to follow specific management practices in their groves and collect data on their practices, including the amounts and application dates for fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals, among with other metrics, as well as tracking the yield and quality of the fruit they harvested.
Growers would be expected to collect data for at least six years. Some of the new trees were planted two years ago.
According to Tamara Wood, a communications consultant at Citrus Mutual there are now 77 grower entities spread out over 6,238 acres of new plantings.
"While we do have some projects in the CRAFT program that visually seem to show some promise, none of our projects have quite reached the bearing stage to really see what influence anything has or will have on production quantity and quality," Wood said. "Typically that takes four to five, so our early projects should start seeing some results that can be accurately analyzed in the next year or two."