The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued its initial Florida Citrus forecast on Friday 9 October, pegging the 2015/16 Florida orange crop at 80m boxes, down 17 per cent from last season.
The USDA estimated early-mid varieties at 40m boxes, down from 47.4m boxes at the end of last season, while the Valencia orange total is 40m boxes compared to 49.3m in 2014/15.
In 2014/15, the final Florida orange crop tallied 96.7m boxes, according to the USDA.
'We expected the estimate to be lower than the prior year so this really isn't too much of a surprise,' said Michael Sparks, executive vice-president and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual. 'We are in a challenging time right now with severe disease pressure but Florida growers continue to be the best producers in the world.
'The key going forward is to keep existing trees productive and get new trees in the ground so we can rebuild our production base while maintaining the current infrastructure,' he added.
The specialty fruit forecast checked in at 2.2m boxes, USDA said.
