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Florida citrus: More fruit from fewer acres

Bradenton Herald – September 25, 2011

Florida’s just-completed citrus harvest was 4 percent larger than the previous year’s, and generated 2 percent more revenue for growers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual citrus inventory.

Production and revenue both grew during the 2010-11 harvest even though the number of acres in production was down 2.3 percent from the previous season.

Florida’s harvest accounts for 63 percent of all the commercial citrus grown in the United States.

The $1.15 billion preliminary value of the 2010-11 crop is up from $1.12 billion for 2009-10.

Working groves totaled 541,328 acres, a net decrease of 12,709 acres. Of the 30 Florida counties included in the survey, 23 reported declines in acreage, while five recorded increases and two were unchanged.

Polk County remained the statewide leader with 82,577 acres and also took the lead in number of trees planted, with 9.9 million.

Closer to Orlando, Lake County continued main- tain the most citrus-producing acres, with 11,903, followed by Osceola (9,871), Orange (3,515), Brevard (3,430), Volusia (981), and Seminole (422).

The number of acres of orange trees slipped for a seventh consecutive year to 473,086 — the smallest total since the record low of 466,252 recorded in 1986 after back-to-back hard freezes. Grapefruit acreage fell to a new low of 48,990.

Citrus production total- ed 165.9 million boxes compared with 159.4 million boxes in 2009-10.

Production increases were noted for all varieties except white and colored grapefruit and late-maturing honey tangerines.

Abandoned-grove acreage declined 5 percent to 136,534. In Central Florida, Lake County had the most abandoned grove acres — 12,638 — followed by Brevard (5,236), Orange (3,565), Osceola (2,930), Volusia (1,787) and Seminole (447).

Statewide, Indian River led the count with 50,658 abandoned acres — or 7 percent of the state’s total.

Abandoned acres pose a potential threat to the industry as a source of pests and disease.

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