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Ending the squeeze on Citrus
Daily Commercial.com – May 14, 2008
Benjamin Roode
TAVARES – Lake County and Central Florida’s citrus crop appears to be moving forward at expected paces, signaling a rebound from devastating hurricanes more than three years ago.
Diseases like canker and citrus greening are giving growers and grove caretakers a new threat with which to deal in the coming seasons. Increased transportation costs mean a good crop won’t pay as much as once thought.
Hamelin orange harvests are almost meeting seasonal projections, said Ryan Atwood, citrus extension agent for the University of Florida Lake County extension office in Tavares. Valencias are on pace, with Lake County’s crop in the middle of picking.
Trees are bearing more fruit than previous years, Umatilla grove owner Nick Faryna said. That fruit is smaller than past years, usually a signal of tastier oranges, tangerines and grapefruits.
Either way, more fruit is usually good, he said.
Late blooming for all citrus this season meant the possibility of an uncertain labor supply. Some workers, waiting on Lake’s few groves to mature, have been moving south, leaving some growers unsure of where their labor is coming from, Faryna said.
The lull in local construction has meant replacement for those workers who moved south, said Rusty Wiygul, director of Florida Citrus Mutual’s growing division.
Early rains helped the crop, Wiygul said. Dry conditions now won’t hurt the fruit’s quality but could cause early fruit drop, where oranges fall from the tree before they can be picked. That condition has not yet shown up, he said.
Florida is projected to produce about 85 million boxes of Valencia oranges this season, up from 63.4 million last year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures.
The improved season is a boon to farmers who have dealt with tree replacement from the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons. Valencia production dropped from about 116 million boxes in 2003-04, to about 72 million the next year, according to the USDA. Projections have hovered near that number until this year’s projection.
May’s USDA forecast for all Florida oranges stayed at 169 million boxes, unchanged from April and up from 167 million in March. Florida is expected to outpace the next closest producer, California, by more than twice the number of oranges, according to forecasts.
Florida produced 129 million boxes of oranges last year. About 90 percent of Florida oranges are used to make juice.
The biggest worry now for growers is the cost to transport oranges to processing plants, Wiygul said. With soaring diesel prices, it costs more to transport oranges to the juicer, higher costs for the juicer to ship juice and increased prices at the grocer for orange juice.
Prices can only rise so much before consumers stop buying, he said.
“There’s just so much you can pass on,” Wiygul said. “It gets to a point when you just can’t pass it on anymore.
And the two diseases are still on growers’ minds, Faryna said. Canker causes premature fruit and leaf drop on citrus. Greening can reduce the amount a citrus tree produces and even kill a healthy tree.
Growers have reported citrus samples with both diseases in south Lake County, though not as numerous as incidences in Orange, Polk and points south, according to data from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Division of Plant Industry.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
