South Alabama’s citrus production is nearly non-existent. The 2025 snow event made sure of that. One of the few remaining producers is Craig Goolsby, with Silverhill Satsumas in Baldwin County. Goolsby recently added trees to his citrus operation, but that is far from the norm for Alabama citrus growers.
According to Goolsby, state plant protection inspectors were recently making the rounds to check for citrus greening in satsumas. He asked an inspector what he was seeing and the answer was: “We’re seeing a lot of folks that have a lot of dead trees and we’re seeing folks that are not replanting.” This applies to both Houston and Mobile counties, the inspector said.
Goolsby said whole groves were wiped out from the historic snow event. Prior to the 2025 freeze, Goolsby’s co-op had about 1,200 productive trees. Following the freeze, Goolsby and his farming partners lost somewhere in the vicinity of 700. The number of productive trees dropped to between 250 and 300.
The tree loss served as a reminder of how challenging citrus production can be in the region.
“This is a second career kind of thing for me. You can’t do this for a living. It’s just too fragile,” Goolsby said. “You’re just one really cold snap away from being out of business. You either have to have it as a second career or have enough other things going on.”
Since the 2025 freeze, Goolsby has planted an additional 250 trees, which gives him approximately 550 trees.
“It was just kind of a half measure — not wanting to go all the way in to try to get back where I was, but at the same time wanting to try to increase just a little bit,” Goolsby added.
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