CITRUS NURSERY SOURCE: Tree Propagations Provide Insight on Plantings

By Peter Chaires

The summer of 2024 has been one of suspense, hope and anticipation. There is great suspense in learning how many acres will remain in citrus production, be repurposed or worse yet, be developed. There is a great sense of hope that Mother Nature will provide ideal growing conditions for the crop, and natural disaster recovery will not be part of our fall conversation. There is anticipation that currently employed therapies will begin to minimize drop and restore fruit size and internal quality. Through it all, there has been a fair bit of water cooler conversation about a lag in citrus tree orders and reports of nurseries struggling to survive while operating well below capacity.

TREE REPLACEMENT CRITICAL

There is no confusion over the importance of tree replacement. New trees must be planted if Florida is to retain valuable nursery, growing, packing and processing capacities. It’s time to take a quick look at the Florida propagation numbers and see what they reveal relative to grower confidence. Are we planting trees at a pace sufficient to support nurseries through this difficult time? Are we planting more early and mid-season varieties to prevent further compression of the packing and processing seasons?

To begin to answer these questions, let’s look at the past four citrus seasons in Table 1. The data focuses mainly on orange and grapefruit, with a quick overview of lemon. Specialty fruit will be explored at another time.

ORANGES

The data clearly shows that orange tree planting has steadily declined in each of the past four seasons, with propagations dropping from 3.65 million trees to approximately 800,000 trees.

Now let’s look at the orange breakdown in Table 2. This is where a lot of questions will be answered. Are we rebuilding the early-mid inventory? Are we still building late-season processing volume and compressing the season by planting fewer early-mids? Are the new releases and those in the rapid increase program being adopted?

Here are a few gleanings about oranges from Table 2:

• Hamlins are still being planted, though not at a pace that will rebalance the season.
• Approximately 10% of the Hamlins being planted are N13-32, a new improved line from the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).
• Carney 2 and Carney 3 are being planted. The combined 165 acres does demonstrate some interest, but it looks more like trial and evaluation than scaled production. Perhaps positive results will drive more volume.
• About 95 acres of Donaldson have been planted. Again, not large production numbers, but people are looking at it. This one may eventually get the attention of packinghouses.
• Surprisingly, navel oranges (over 900 acres) are still being planted. Oxytetracycline may have renewed grower confidence or hope in navels.
• About 150 acres of UF/IFAS early Valencias (EV) have been planted. This is not a big number, but their potential is being explored. Additionally, around 550 acres of Valquarius have been planted. Valquarius is not as early as EV but is substantially earlier than standard Valencia. Valquarius seems to be a more popular choice than Pineapple and Midsweet, but Vernia is winning the mid-season slot with over 4,500 acres planted during the last four years.
• Roble was part of the rapid increase program, and orders represent about 87 acres. Most growers have not produced Roble in a long time. This will be a learning curve for some.
• OLL oranges are getting some attention. Approximately 140 acres of OLL-4 and 627 acres of OLL-8 have been planted. It has taken some time for these to get traction, but some growers are giving them a look.
• All in all, we are seeing continued commitment to the Citrus Research and Field Trial (CRAFT) program and trial and evaluation of new and retread varieties for fresh and processing. All of this is positive. We would like to see more volume and speed. The question remains: How do we get there?

GRAPEFRUIT

After years of declining orders and loss of production, grapefruit appears to be holding its own. If one assumes 170 trees per acre, this represents industry adding an average of 1,675 acres of grapefruit per year over this period. This is not barn-burning progress, but it does show a level of commitment that is encouraging. Some of this is attributable to the substantial expansion of citrus under protective screen, but we also have some conventional plantings in the ground.

It should be noted that 2023–24 budwood reports are still arriving, so data for this year are not etched in stone. 

As for grapefruit, Flame, Ray Ruby, Ruby Red and Star Ruby account for a little over 91% of the plantings over this four-year period. This is not surprising. The numbers break out as shown in Table 3.

LEMONS

The story for lemons is a bit foggier. If one presumes that Bearss, Eureka, Harvey and Lisbon lemons represent commercial interests, we have added 206,321 commercial lemon trees over the past four seasons. These varieties comprise approximately 40% of the total lemon propagation. The other 60% is mostly dooryard market, with a small volume for research.

Acknowledgments: Sincere appreciation goes to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Division of Plant Industry and its Bureau of Citrus Budwood Registration and the Commercial Citrus Nursery Inspection Program for compiling the data used in this article.

Peter Chaires is the executive director of the New Varieties Development and Management Company.

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