Photo by Lindy Savelle
On the cusp of another harvest season, Lindy Savelle, executive director of the Georgia Citrus Association, believes there will be a bumper crop in the South Georgia, North Florida and South Alabama areas.
“I’ve not talked to a single person who has said, ‘I’m not going to have fruit this year’ — not with satsumas and not with Cara Caras. Pretty much everything is loaded up on the trees,” said Savelle at the recent Cold Hardy Citrus Field Day. “Some of these newer varieties (like Marathon) that we don’t know how they’ll do with a large volume, they’re breaking limbs. We’re going to have an exceptional amount of fruit this year.”
That’s encouraging news for citrus producers. What would make it even better is if growers can capitalize on the crop with a favorable market.
“Last year we had some growers who panicked when we had some cold temperatures. I know a couple of growers in particular, instead of just letting the fruit stay on the tree, they were afraid that the fruit might go bad under a freeze,” Savelle said. “Some of the newer growers are not used to letting fruit sit out there on a tree during a freeze. Obviously, if it’s a 17 degrees freeze, they can’t leave it on there. But when it’s just going to be in the high 20s, that Georgia fruit will endure that cold as long as it’s not days long. But we had some growers last year that hit the panic button and pulled all the fruit off. Then they had no place to go with it.”
Savelle stressed that most of the fruit, with the exception of satsumas, will stay on the tree longer and stay on the shelf longer. Fewer satsumas are being planted as a result.
“I don’t know anyone that’s putting in commercial groves of satsumas because we’ve got enough to have an established industry,” Savelle said.
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