This season's Florida grapefruit production volume should be up on the previous two seasons at around 20.3m cartons, according to the Indian River Citrus League.
The announcement, which confirms an earlier forecast by the US Department of Agirculture, suggested output was poised to return to the level last seen during the 2009/10 season.
“The season started out normal, on a normal schedule,” said Doug Bournique, executive vice-president of the Indian River Citrus League.
“We'd been off-schedule for several years because of hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, so it took the trees a while to rebound.”
Bournique said he expected fruit quality to be good this year, but noted that brix levels were currently 'slightly down' as a result of heavy rain in October.
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