Trees in the cold-hardy citrus region are expected to produce a low crop in 2025 following a massive crop in 2024.
Mary Sutton, University of Georgia (UGA) assistant professor and citrus Extension specialist, believes the trees’ alternate bearing cycle will contribute to the decreased crop in 2025, especially for satsuma mandarins.
“This alternate bearing pattern probably started in 2023. That was such a low year because of the damage from the December 2022 freeze. Because they had such a low crop load in 2023, essentially the trees had extra resources invested in a crop load for 2024 and had an absolutely massive crop load,” Sutton explained. “That’s going to deplete the resources for the next season. Now we’re in that next season where the trees have to fall back to that low crop load to recover from the heavy crop load.”
Alternate bearing refers to the tree’s tendency to produce a heavy crop followed by a light crop the following year. Sutton noted in the UGA Extension Citrus Blog that alternate bearing is a common problem in multiple mandarin varieties. Very heavy years can be followed by one or more low years.
The severity of alternate bearing can vary greatly as well. A normal pattern for a given variety may look like 150 pounds per tree one year followed by 250 pounds the next year. For another variety, it could be 50 pounds per tree one year followed by 400 pounds the next year.
“A lot of the citrus we’re growing shouldn’t have a strong alternate bearing. It might be a difference of 100 pounds from year to year. But because we had such a low year and such a high year, I do worry that we’ve been knocked into this extreme pattern,” Sutton said. “We just have to see what happens this year, see what fruit set is like next year and then start making plans on how we can adjust in the future to get us back on track.”
Share this Post
About the Author
