CLERMONT, Fla. – Florida is facing its smallest citrus harvest in more than a century.
The industry produced nearly 18 million, 90-pound boxes of oranges during the last growing season. This year, an updated forecast from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said Florida is projected to produce enough oranges to fill 12 million boxes, three million less than expected before Milton.
At Showcase of Citrus, Manager Tara Boshell showed News 6 the damage she said her groves endured during the hurricane. While she describes it as minimal compared to others, some of their trees did get root rot from flooding.
“With Milton and the amount of water that this area held, although we have the lakes where the water could flow, our low-lying areas had had the water standing in three, four, or five days, even,” Boshell said.
Boshell said that within the last year, they replaced many of their trees. While they have to wait for them to mature, the decision is one she said will set them in the fight against citrus greening disease.
“With IFAs and the USDA working well together for almost two decades now and coming up with more disease-resistant, less prone to disease trees, we’re able to reset what we have here with a healthy, stronger tree, [with] good root stocks,” she explained.
Florida Citrus Mutal Executive Vice President and CEO Matt Joyner said they were optimistic their research on how to combat citrus greening would finally pay off until the hurricanes hit.
“It’s not a bumper crop by far, we have a long way to go, but it represented a recovery from where we’ve been and to see that fruit hit the ground is obviously discouraging for growers,” he said.
The height of Florida’s citrus production was in the late 90s, when 244 million boxes of oranges were produced.
“Unfortunately, once you’re at your peak, once you’re here, there’s no really other way to go and everything declines,” Boshell said. “So, any, any time you hear something that’s not so happy, it does hurt.”
To help offset the damage from the hurricane, Republican U.S. Senator Rick Scott and Democratic U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock urged congressional leaders to approve an agriculture supplemental disaster package that meets the needs of farmers and ranchers in Florida and Georgia.
“This is a bipartisan issue,” Joyner said. “You’re talking about Florida’s signature crop. The orange is on the license plate.”
While they cannot control Mother Nature, farmers like Boshell are trying new ways to keep their crops alive, while continuing their commitment to citrus.
“Most people in the citrus industry, we’re here for good. We’re trying. This is our lifestyle. This is our family. This is our history, and we want to move forward,” she said. “We understand that Florida has a lot of development, whether it’s homes or buildings and businesses, but this is this is on our license plates. The orange is the landmark of Florida, and we want to keep it going. So we just roll with the punches.”
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