-August 27,2019-
Orange growers have not had a lot to cheer about this past year but they can look forward to a more marketable, larger size piece of fruit this fall, or so it seems.
Two who agree with this are California Citrus Mutual’s new president Casey Creamer and past guru Joel Nelsen. “At this stage the fruit size looks larger than last year” says Nelsen. “The general consensus is that it looks better” agrees Creamer. That should help improve prices some. The overall size of the crop looks similar to last year expects Creamer. USDA says last year we saw about 77 million cartons of navels harvested.
Last year USDA says the average fruit size was at least a 20-year low measured on September 1 at 2.11 inches -well below the average size in years past. In 2017 the average size was 2.34 inches. If we had smaller size fruit in 2018/19 at least the crop set was good with the average for Central Valley at 426 oranges per tree. That compares to 273 pieces of fruit per tree in 2017.
Look for picking on the 2019/20 crop to start in October.
Even with a more marketable orange, growers face plenty of hurdles again this season as there is no resolution to the Chinese tariffs says Casey and a continued flood of import of overseas citrus targeting our market just as we are in production ourselves and there is plenty of fruit to supply our own market.
Nelsen the offshore fruit penetrating our market just as we are having trouble marketing overseas”just exacerbates the rush to red ink.” We need to talk to USDA” he vows.
Oranges are Tulare County’s number two crop by value with all citrus generating more than $1 billion here.