The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced that it has increased its April orange crop forecast for the 2009/10 campaign by 600,000 boxes, boosting the total estimate to 131.6m boxes of oranges.
The orange increase came in early and midseason varieties, the USDA said, which grew to 68.6m boxes, while Valencias remained stable at 63m boxes.
Also on the move was the USDA's Florida grapefruit forecast, which climbed by 200,000 boxes to hit 19m in total.
For Florida specialty fruit, the USDA's tangelo estimate stayed at 900,000 boxes while tangerines increased slightly to 4.1m boxes.
'As the season heads into the stretch run we are starting to get a clearer picture of the effect the January freeze had on our crop,' said Michael Sparks, executive vice-president and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual.
'Overall we came through in decent shape and with the bloom coming out the industry is starting to think about next year,' he added.
The USDA makes its initial estimate for the US$9bn Florida citrus industry in October, and then revises it monthly until the end of the season in July.
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