The Umatilla Citrus Growers Association’s production was as high as 700,000 boxes a season around 10 years ago, but the organization’s president estimates it will only be 200,000 this season.
“I’d say the majority of that reduction is related to greening in one form or another,” said John Westervelt, the president of the association.
Twenty-five years after the last of the winter freezes virtually wiped out citrus crops in Central Florida, greening is taking a steep toll on the groves of area growers. But citrus growers intrepid enough to remain in business are hoping a $30 million aid package announced last week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will begin to turn the tide in their fight against a scourge that has decimated crops statewide.
“If we’re to stay in business, we’ve got to have that research,” Westervelt said .
Much of the aid money will go into research for treating trees with greening, engineering trees that resist it, developing early detection and finding a way to culture the disease in laboratories.
This is just the most recent challenge to face the local citrus industry. Freezes in 1983 and 1985 brought the Umatilla Citrus Growers Association’s production to zero.
The success of these research efforts is likely to have a significant impact on Lake County, one of the largest producers of citrus in Florida: The United States Department of Agriculture estimates Lake produced 2,823,000 boxes of citrus in the 2013-14 growing season.
“We’ve got a long history of agriculture success here in Lake County, and certainly as the citrus groves disappear, that’s going to have an impact,” said Robert Chandler IV, director of Lake County’s Economic Development and Tourism Department.
And the citrus industry isn’t just about groves.
Sunsational Citrus, a packing house in Umatilla, employs approximately 45 people during the season, according to Kris Sutton, the production manager of Faryna Grove Care, who works hand-in-hand with the packing house’s manager, Alex Santiago.
If citrus production continues to decline, the packing house will slow down and employees’ hours will be cut, Sutton said.
Faryna Grove Care owns 200 acres of groves in Umatilla, and takes care of 2,000 acres. Most of that acreage is in Lake, although some is in Marion County. Faryna Grove Care employs about 25 people, but its staffing swells to 125 people during the picking season.
“There’s not a grove in the state that doesn’t have greening,” Sutton said.
He said research is crucial.
“It’s just who’s going to hold on until they find the cure,” he said.
Westervelt doesn’t think the relief effort has come too late.
“We’ve still got a window in which we can solve the problem,” he said.
He said the research must focus on keeping existing trees in production and establishing trees that won’t be impacted by greening.
“That grower … that has 15-year-old trees, if he has to push them all up and replant them, a lot of them won’t do it,” Westervelt said. “If you can find a method to treat that tree and keep it in production, that will work for those.”
Westervelt said greening impacts the nutrients going to the tree as well as the fruit itself. The quality of oranges is measured by the sugar and acid in them.
“By this time in the year, that acid should have fallen out to the point that the orange has a real good flavor, and if the acid doesn’t decrease, then the flavor is not going to be real good and greening seems to … hold that acid in the fruit,” Westervelt said.
Westervelt said production and the quality of the fruit on trees with greening is going to decrease. Then, growers have to change how they care for a grove, and the remedies can be expensive. He said growers have to use a different fertilizer program and nutritional sprays for the groves.
“You can’t treat trees the way you used to,” Westervelt said. “The world has changed.”
Source: DAILY COMMERCIAL US
