By Clint Thompson and Nick Papagni
The Georgia Citrus Association’s trip to California last week allowed the state’s industry leaders to look for opportunities to advance citrus in the cold-hardy citrus region.
One of the focuses was learning about the different varieties produced in California that could have a potential future in the Southeast.
Lindy Savelle, executive director of the Georgia Citrus Association, helped organize the trip across the country and discussed one of those citrus varieties the group learned more about.
Clementines
“One of the things that they grow here and put them under a netting system, they call it a clementine. We’ve got one grower, maybe two that have a handful of clementines. They were talking about pulling them up because they’re so seedy,” said Savelle in an interview with AgNet Media. “I said, don’t do that. I said let’s go to California and see what they do to prevent seed. We’ve seen that here and can take that back to those growers.”
If bees achieve cross pollination in citrus crops, it leads to seeds in easy peel oranges. Netting prevents cross pollination, leading to seedless citrus which is much more desired by consumers.
“Sure, it’s going to cost you some money to put that netting over it, and it’s going to be a lot of work, but you’ve already got an 8 to 10-year-old tree that produces. You’ve got to take that one more step to net the tree to keep the seed out,” Savelle said. “That’s one we definitely need to increase, and we’ve had people tell us before you need to be growing clemenules. Nobody wants to buy a piece of fruit that has seed, and we never even knew about netting until we came to California.”
Satsumas
Savelle and other Georgia citrus farmers continue to look to expand production beyond the standard satsuma mandarins, which enabled the industry to find its footing in Georgia. Growers also need to be selective in what varieties they choose to pursue.
“One thing’s for sure, we know it now; we took a niche market with satsumas and forced it to be a commercial market. Satsumas are wonderful. If we could get every child in the state of Georgia to have satsumas when they’re available, that would be wonderful. I think Georgia Grown can help us with that. But that is not a commercially viable product,” Savelle noted.
“It’s an easy peel; it’s seedless, but it doesn’t stay on the shelf very long. It’s not easy to ship. There’s a lot of negatives with that. We’re going to have to focus on the local market with our satsumas but dream about being part of a bigger plan. I think coming here, we clearly understand that there’s only a few varieties we need to be growing. We don’t need to be growing 27 different varieties.”