USDA Predicts Florida Will Produce The Lowest Orange Harvest In 52 Years

WINTER HAVEN – The 2015-16 Florida citrus season went from bad to worse in a hurry.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Tuesday made an unprecedented reduction in the projected Florida citrus crop just a month after its initial forecast.

The USDA now predicts Florida will produce just 74 million boxes of oranges, the lowest harvest in 52 years. That’s 6 million fewer orange boxes than its Oct. 9 projection, an 8 percent decline, and 24 percent below the 2014-15 orange crop of 96.8 million boxes.

The USDA also trimmed the Florida grapefruit harvest by 100,000 boxes to 12.2 million boxes but left the projected tangerine crop at 1.75 million boxes. The expected tangelo harvest plummeted by 11 percent over the month to just 400,000 boxes, the lowest total in 59 years.

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