The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has raised its orange crop forecast for the 2011/12 season by 2 per cent, estimating Florida will now produce 150m boxes of the fruit, up from the initial October estimate of 147m boxes.
'So far, this season has progressed as we expected,' said Michael Sparks, executive vice-president and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual. 'This increase wasn’t altogether unexpected and we are still comfortable with the USDA’s production estimates and the size of the crop.
'Grower returns are firming up and at the current levels they are helping offset the high production costs we are experiencing due to pest and disease,' he added.
The orange crop alteration came due to a 2m-box increase in the Valencia crop, from 73m to 75m, the USDA noted, while early and mid-season varieties jumped 1m boxes to 75m.
According to the forecast, Florida will harvest 19.4m boxes of grapefruit in 2011/12, down from the 20.1m boxes estimated in October.
For Florida specialty fruit, the USDA predicted 1.1m boxes of tangelos and 4.5m boxes of tangerines, down from 4.7m in October.
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