Citrus season forecast ‘extremely discouraging' after Hurricane Milton

A new federal report says Florida’s struggling citrus industry already was expected to produce less fruit during the 2024-2025 growing season. And that was before Hurricane Milton swept across Central Florida.

Based on surveys conducted in mid-September, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday released a forecast for the 2024-2025 season that showed an overall 16.8 percent decrease in production of oranges, grapefruit and specialty fruits from the 2023-2024 season. What’s more, production was projected to be below the 2022-2023 output, which was the lowest in 90 years.

The industry has grappled for two decades with deadly citrus greening disease and issues such as encroaching development. But it got hammered in 2022, when Hurricane Ian tore across the heart of the industry. And now, growers have to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, which made landfall Wednesday night in Sarasota County before crossing the state.

“Unfortunately, we're getting all too familiar with these storms,” Matt Joyner, CEO of Bartow-based Florida Citrus Mutual, said Thursday when discussing Milton’s impact. “None of them are good, but we're gonna pick up the pieces and move on.”

After the federal forecast was released Friday, Joyner called the numbers “extremely discouraging” and also alluded to 2017’s Hurricane Irma, which caused damage as it moved up the state.

"The estimates released today do not even account for the damages inflicted this week on groves across the state as a result of Hurricane Milton,” Joyner said in a prepared statement. “Citrus growers are just beginning to assess the impacts and begin the recovery process from the Category 3 storm. Our citrus growers are resilient, but after fighting citrus greening for nearly two decades and having three major hurricanes in the past seven years devastate the heart of our growing region, growers are weary and will require support from our state and federal partners to continue the industry's comeback.”

The new forecast, the first of the 2024-2025 season, projected growers will produce enough oranges to fill 15 million industry-standard 90-pound boxes. The industry ended the 2023-2024 season in July with 17.96 million boxes of oranges. That was up from 15.82 million boxes produced during the 2022-2023 season, the lowest orange total since the 1934-1935 season.

Grapefruit production in 2024-2025 is forecast at 1.4 million boxes, down from 1.79 million boxes during the 2023-2024 season and 1.81 million boxes in 2022-2023. The past two seasons marked the first time Florida’s grapefruit production was under 2 million boxes in 110 years.

Specialty crops, mostly tangerines and tangelos, are projected at 400,000 boxes during the 2024-2025 seatons. Specialty crops ended the 2023-2024 season at 450,000 boxes, the lowest since the category was first listed separately following the 1919-1920 season. They were at 480,000 boxes in 2022-2023.

The overall harvest in 2024-2025 would be the lowest for Florida since the 1921-1922 season.

The forecast also projected 500,000 boxes of lemons during the 2024-2025 season. The federal government in the past did not provide Florida estimates of lemons.

Growers say it takes about two years for groves to recover from major storms, and many plantings after Ian were just starting to take hold. Milton’s projected effects won’t be reflected until federal officials update the forecast in December. The season will run through July.

Milton caused fruit to fall off trees, but Joyner said measuring the impacts will take time as some near-ripe grapefruit and oranges continue to fall.

“When you have a tree that's been beaten by the wind, and particularly for the duration we saw with this storm, there's going to be … drop over the next week, week-and-a-half, two weeks,” Joyner said Thursday. “The stems have been twisted. The fruit on the tree has been stressed. And so, we know that whatever we see right now is not the true tale. We're going to have this unfold unfortunately over the next week or so.”

Joyner added that he hasn’t seen flooding similar to Ian, but assessments and reports from growers will take several days.

“A lot of folks just like me, they don't have power, internet,” Joyner said. “They've been out riding, assessing damage. We'll probably, over the next couple days, get more feedback from them and find out where those pockets of standing water are. But thus far, at least, I'm hopeful that maybe this wasn't quite the water event that Ian was. It certainly was every bit as much a wind event.”

Joyner said initial observations indicated that growers will have to replace bags used to ward off Asian citrus psyllid, a tiny insect that spreads citrus greening disease.

“Those bags don't react well to heavy winds,” Joyner said. “So, they're going to have to get those put back on the trees.”