University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences photo
Georgia’s citrus industry is growing and so are the diverse varieties producers are planting every year.
Jake Price, University of Georgia citrus agent, said at the Citrus Grower’s Summer Update meeting last week in Valdosta that there were 4,400 citrus acres planted in South Georgia. At approximately 145 trees per acre, this equates to about 638,000 trees. What started out as an industry that relied mostly on satsuma mandarins has transitioned to one that is more diverse.
“It’s trending away from satsumas. To start with, everybody had put in satsumas where that was like 95% of what was planted. Now it’s about 60%,” Price said. “People are planting different varieties that are going to come in a little differently from satsumas, which have a bottleneck situation in November. We’ve just got to figure out how to move all of these satsumas and maybe extend the window a little earlier and maybe a little later.”
Price said growers are planting more Shiranui, (though it did not fare well with the Christmas freeze in 2022), navels, Tangos, Marathons, grapefruit and blood oranges. These alternatives to satsumas have allowed producers to extend the harvest window in the fall. Satsumas are only available for harvest during a finite window in October and November.
“Satsumas are not a fruit that’s going to hang on the tree and get better. They have a shelf life on the tree. You have five weeks of harvest, and it probably peaks in two or three weeks,” Price said. “By mid-November, everybody’s going to want to sell fruit.”
There is projected to be a plethora of fruit to be moved this fall. Minimal production was recorded last year following the Christmas freeze in 2022. Trees have rebounded, especially satsumas.
“There’s going to be more than ever, and it’s going to be interesting to see if the market can absorb them all in a short amount of time,” Price said. “The satsumas proved they are very tolerant of cold weather. They did the best of any of the trees.”
By Clint Thompson