Florida’s citrus crops
were slowly getting past the problem with citrus greening. Then came Hurricane Irma.
LAKELAND — In less than a day Hurricane Irma turned a once promising Florida citrus crop into a disaster with winds ripping as much as 75 percent of the fruit from their trees.
“We had one of the best crops in five years if we could have delivered it,” said Paul Meador of Everglades Harvesting and Hauling in LaBelle, which manages about 3,000 orange grove acres in Southwest Florida. “Yes, it was devastating.”
Meador estimated as much as 75 percent of his most mature oranges, the early and mid-season varieties harvested from October to March, have already fallen off the trees, he said. As many as 50 percent of his late season Valencia oranges, harvested from March to June, are lost.
And more fruit losses may come in the next few weeks because almost all of his groves are underwater in the rainfall Irma dumped on the area.
Southwest Florida groves appear to have taken the brunt of Irma's force as the hurricane made landfall in that area as a Category 4 storm with sustained winds between 130 and 156 mph.
Mongi Zekri, a University of Florida citrus agent working out of the Hendry County Cooperative Extension Service office in LaBelle, estimated Irma destroyed 60 percent of that county's orange crop. Hendry County leads the state with 10.1 million citrus trees, according to an Aug. 31 U.S. Department of Agriculture report.
Groves in Polk County and the Central Florida Ridge, also along Irma's path across Florida, also sustained major fruit losses.
Vic Story Jr. of the Story Companies, a Lake Wales-based grower, estimated its groves in Polk, Highlands, Hardee, Okeechobee and Hillsborough counties lost between 50 to 60 percent of its earlymid oranges and about 40 percent of its Valencia oranges. The company owns or manages about 5,000 grove acres in those counties.
Other local growers also have significant fruit losses, he added.
“I haven't been in every grove in Polk County, but the ones I've been to look like they've lost 30 percent of their fruit,” Story said.
Growers on the East Coast who did not take a direct hit from Irma, but still experienced tropical storm-force winds, appear to have sustained less fruit loss.
“The majority of the crop is still on the tree,” said Doug Bournique, executive director of the Indian River Citrus League, which represents the world's largest grapefruit growing region.
That's significant because the size of grapefruit makes it the most vulnerable to being blown off the tree by strong winds. The three 2004 hurricanes, two of which made landfall on the East Coast, destroyed an estimated 75 percent of that season's crop.
Still Irma caused widespread damage across Florida citrusgrowing region, said Andrew Meadows, a spokesman for Lakeland-based Florida Citrus Mutual, the growers' trade group.
Meadows estimated fruit losses at 20 to 50 percent, depending upon location, he said.
A widely watched August forecast by Kissimmee citrus consultant Elizabeth Steger projected the 2017-18 orange crop at 75.5 million boxes, or 10 percent more than last season's crop.
The USDA will not release its first official citrus crop projection until Oct. 12.