TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida's citrus industry saw a slight bump Friday in the forecast for the orange crop, with a month remaining in the growing season.
The struggling citrus industry is now projected to fill 68.5 million 90-pound boxes of oranges, 500,000 more than projected in May, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture monthly forecast released Friday. The number is about 2 percent below the forecast when the current growing season began in October.
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The industry --- battling deadly citrus greening disease --- filled a decades-low 81.6 million boxes of oranges during the 2015-2016 season, well below the more than 200 million boxes a year the state filled in the 1990s.
Meanwhile, the grapefruit harvest remained at 7.8 million boxes between the May and June reports. When the current season opened, the grapefruit forecast stood at 9.6 million boxes, which would be down from 10.8 million boxes in 2015-2016.