The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced that its estimate of the 2012-13 Florida citrus crop has decreased more than five per cent to 146m boxes, Eurofruit reports.

According to the USDA, the majority of the decrease will occur in early-mid varieties, which declined seven million boxes to 67m from the USDA's initial October estimate. Valencias dropped one million boxes to 79m boxes.

The USDA makes its first estimate in October of each year and revises it monthly as the crop takes shape until the end of the season in July.

'This decrease was not entirely unexpected as we have been hearing reports of severe fruit drop throughout the state,' said Michael Sparks, executive vide-president and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual.

'The dry weather coupled with intense disease pressure growers are facing is most likely causing the drop. I anticipate the decrease in crop size will continue to put upward pressure on fruit pricing,' he added.

For Florida specialty fruit, the USDA now predicts 1.1m boxes of tangelos, down from 1.2m in October and 3.8m boxes of tangerines, down from 4.4m in October.

The USDA now predicts Florida will harvest 18m boxes of grapefruit, down from October’s estimate of 20.3m boxes.

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