Florida Citrus Forecast Continues Free Fall
March 8, 2013 
The 2012-2013 Florida all orange forecast released by the USDA is 139 million boxes, down 2 million boxes from the February estimate and 5% less than last season’s production. The total includes 67 million boxes of non-Valencia oranges (early, midseason, navel, and Temple varieties) and 72 million boxes of Valencia oranges.
Non-Valencia orange production increased by 1 million boxes to 67 million boxes. The navel portion remains unchanged at 2.2 million boxes.
Valencia production fell 3 million boxes to 72 million boxes. Fruit droppage has increased sharply in the past two months.
All grapefruit production lowered 1 million boxes to 17 million. Both the white and colored components were reduced by 500,000 boxes, resulting in forecasts of 4.5 million boxes of white and 12.5 million boxes of colored grapefruit. Surveys conducted in February continue to show droppage for white and colored grapefruit to be the highest in any season not affected by a significant weather event. The surveys also confirmed fruit size to be the smallest in the series which began with the 1968-1969 season.
All tangerine production is unchanged at 3.7 million boxes, consisting of the early varieties (Fallglo and Sunburst) at 2 million boxes and the Honey variety at 1.7 million boxes. Harvest of the early tangerines is over for the season and the forecast remains unchanged. February surveys confirmed honey fruit size to be the smallest in a series which began with the 1980-1981 season and droppage continued above the mean.
Tangelo production estimates remain unchanged at 1 million boxes, including an allocation of 100,000 boxes for non-certified use. The harvest of tangelos is concluding.
The projection for frozen concentrated orange juice dipped to 1.61 gallons per box of 42° brix concentrate.
Click here for the complete USDA report.
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