The anticipated disappointment has become a reality for cold-hardy citrus growers; satsuma mandarins are in short supply. The predominant citrus variety grown in the region will not have much of a crop this season as harvests have already begun across the cold-hardy region of North Florida, South Georgia and South Alabama.
As expected, citrus volume will be short, mostly due to the lack of satsuma mandarins in the region, says citrus producer Kim Jones, who owns a citrus packing facility in Monticello, Florida, and is part-owner of a similar facility in Tifton, Georgia.
“It’s way off, no doubt about it. Internal fruit quality is really good, but there’s just not a lot of fruit out there,” Jones said. “The color the last two weeks has changed drastically. It really happened fast.”
There was an oversupply of satsuma mandarins in the cold-hardy citrus region last season. Satsumas tend to alternate bear, meaning they will produce a heavy crop load one year and not much of one the next season.
The freeze at the end of 2022 contributed to most satsuma trees having a light crop in 2023. This helped set up trees for big crops in 2024. That is not the case this year, though. Production has gone from one extreme to the other. Market prices are rewarding those growers with a crop this year, said Jones.
“It’s good for those growers, but there’s not many that have them, and that’s the problem,” Jones said. “It’s just very few.”
Besides satsumas and a few grapefruit, Jones has yet to start harvesting many of his citrus varieties.
“We did Marathons (a mandarin variety) earlier, but that’s a small percentage. We’ll see navels next and then shiranuis after that,” Jones said.
The dry, cool weather helped harvests start sooner than expected.
“Consistent cool weather really made it turn a lot faster than normal. We’re seeing fruit two to three weeks ahead of where it normally is,” Jones said.
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