Industry body Florida Citrus Mutual has released the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) revised crop forecast for the Florida citrus season, with orange yields climbing by 200,000 boxes to a total of 145.2m boxes.
The increase was a result of an adjustment in early and mid-season orange varieties from 74m boxes to 74.2m boxes, of which navels accounted for 50,000 boxes. Valencias remained at 71m boxes, and for Florida specialty fruit, tangelos are expected to come in at 1.15m boxes and tangerines also remained steady at 4.3m boxes.
Meanwhile, the USDA predicted that Florida would harvest 18.8m boxes of grapefruit in 2011/12, showing no change from the April estimate.
The USDA makes its initial Florida citrus forecast in October and then revises it monthly until the end of the season in July. Last season, the state produced some 139m boxes of oranges.
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