A new forecast from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has estimated that Florida will produce 143m boxes of oranges for the 2010/11 season, down on the initial estimate of 3m boxes outlined in October.
Cold temperatures, which have hovered over Florida this month, have had no impact on the decrease, according to the USDA forecast.
'This decrease isn't unexpected as we've been hearing reports of smaller fruit over the past couple of weeks,' said Michael Sparks, executive vice-president and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual. 'It looks like the crop isn't going to be as big as initially thought.'
The USDA has predicted that Florida will harvest some 19.6m boxes of grapefruit in 2010/11, down slightly from the initial 20m-box estimate.
Early and midseason citrus varieties were reduced by 1m boxes to 68m boxes in the December forecast, the USDA said, while Valencias were reduced 2m to 75m boxes.
For Florida specialty fruit, meanwhile, the USDA predicts 1.1m boxes of tangelos and 4.4m boxes of tangerines.
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