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Citrus Has Been Polk's Hallmark
The Ledger – February 6, 2011
Citrus, particularly oranges and orange juice, is Florida’s signature product around the world, and Polk County has long led the state in citrus and orange production.
Citrus is a global commodity dating to about 4000 B.C. in Southeast Asia, its probably origin, scientists believe. The fruit was introduced to Europe by the 4th century B.C., perhaps by Alexander the Great.
The early Spanish explorers planted the first orange trees around St. Augustine sometime between 1513 and 1565. It became an established commercial crop by the 19th century, stretching from the St. Augustine to Tampa areas.
Soon after the Civil War, Florida’s annual commercial citrus production reached 1 million boxes and more than 5 million boxes by 1893. At the time, it was sold exclusively as a fresh fruit.
A series of freezes in the 1890s and the early decades of the 20th century decades gradually pushed the citrus-growing region into Central Florida. Polk became the dominant citrus county not only in terms of grove acreage and annual production but also as the home of the industry’s leading organizations.
In the 2009-10 season, Polk maintained it perennial lead in citrus production with 27.9 million boxes of all varieties of a total 159.3 million boxes harvested that season. It was the top orange grower at 24.5 million boxes out of 133.6 million orange boxes statewide, third in grapefruit at 1.7 million boxes out of a statewide 20.3 million-box harvest and tops in tangerines at 1.4 million boxes, nearly a third of the state’s production.
The Florida Department of Citrus, a state agency to market the Florida citrus products, was created in 1935 in Lakeland, where it stayed until 2010, moving to Bartow. In 1948, Florida Citrus Mutual, the state’s largest growers’ trade group, also set up in Lakeland, where it remains.
By then, two Citrus Department scientists, Louis MacDowell and Edwin Moore, teaming with C.D. Atkins, an engineer at the U.S. Department of Agriculture lab in Winter Haven, revolutionized Florida citrus with the development of a commercial process for producing a full-flavored frozen concentrated orange juice.
Beginning in the 1950s, Florida citrus became a citrus juice industry. Today the state’s juice processors buy 95 percent of Florida’s annual production of orange, the largest citrus commodity, and more than 60 percent of its grapefruit.
Florida’s Natural Growers, the third largest OJ seller in the U.S., is based in Lake Wales, and Cutrale Citrus Juices U.S.A. Inc. in Auburndale processes for No. 2 Minute Maid.
Polk is also home to some of the largest fresh fruit packinghouses in Florida, including No. 1 Dundee Citrus Growers Association. Other top 20 packers include the Haines City Citrus Growers Association, Hunt Brothers Cooperative in Lake Wales, Ben Hill Griffin Inc. in Frostproof and Wm. G. Roes & Sons Inc. in Winter Haven.
Polk has maintained its citrus production leadership despite three major freezes and several minor ones during the 1980s, which has pushed the citrus-growing region farther south.
The citrus industry generates an estimated $9 billion in economic activity in Florida.
[ Kevin Bouffard can be reached at kevin.bouffard@theledger.com or at 863-422-6800. Read more on Florida citrus at http://bit.ly/baxWuU. ]
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