Elevated Expectations For Forthcoming Florida Citrus Crop
October 10, 2014 USDA has issued its initial 2014-2015 Florida citrus forecast figuring the orange crop to come in at 108 million boxes (broken down as 56 million boxes of Valencia and 52 million boxes of non-Valencia varieties). Florida produced 104.4 million boxes of oranges during the 2013-2014 campaign, which represented the smallest crop since the freeze-impacted 1989-1990 season.
“This is a positive number as the Florida citrus grower continues to battle citrus greening disease,” said Mike Sparks, executive VP/CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual. “It’s been a tight few years for production and 2014-2015 is no different.”
In August, Elizabeth Steger of Orlando-based Citrus Consulting International led off the 2014-2015 Florida citrus season crop prognostications with a paltry estimate of 89 million boxes of oranges. In addition, finance and investment firm Louis Dreyfus Citrus Inc. released its own forecast soon thereafter, which came in at 96.6 million boxes.
Loading ...Ideal citrus growing weather conditions from the start of the citrus bloom in March to the beginning of the 2014-2015 harvest season played a factor in pushing USDA’s estimate beyond what most were anticipating.
The projection for frozen concentrated orange juice is 1.60 gallons per box of 42° Brix concentrate, which is slightly higher than last season’s final yield.
Grapefruit production is estimated to come in at 15 million boxes, 4% less than last season’s production.
Tangerines are expected to tally at 2.8 million boxes, 3% lower than last season’s total.
USDA is scheduled to provide a forecast update on Nov.10
Click here to read the entire USDA-NASS report.
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