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| 02-26-2010
Florida citrus growers lost at least 7.4 million boxes of fruit, including 6 million boxes of oranges, to last month's freeze.
In the first official estimate of crop losses to January's record-breaking cold snap, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Tuesday dropped its 2009-10 Florida orange crop forecast to 129 million boxes, down 4.4 percent from the pre-freeze estimate of 135 million boxes.
But as bad as those USDA numbers look, they likely reflect the minimum damage from the January freeze.
"Old-timers usually talk about a short (freeze-damaged) crop getting shorter. It's probably a little too early to say this is all the damage," said Ken Keck, executive director of the Florida Department of Citrus in Lakeland.
That's because freeze-damaged fruit will continue to drop from trees until the end of the season in June.
The USDA report also said the grapefruit crop fell 700,000 boxes, or 3.6 percent, to 18.8 million boxes, while tangerines were trimmed by 700,000 boxes, or 15 percent, to 4 million boxes. Tangelos, harvested largely before the freeze, remained at 900,000 boxes.
The tangerine numbers don't reflect the true impact of freeze damage because most early varieties also had been picked before freezing weather struck Florida during the first two weeks in January. Late-season honey tangerines, which aren't harvested until January, took the brunt of the losses, losing 600,000 boxes, or 35 percent, down to 1.7 million boxes.
Read the original article from The Ledger.