Challenges Ahead, But Florida Citrus Growers Up To The Task [Opinion]

Mike Sparks, Florida Citrus MutualThe 2015-2016 season is upon us and the Florida citrus grower continues to stare down HLB as it threatens to wipe out our entire industry.

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This season marks my 42nd in the Florida citrus industry and clearly a completely different environment exists than the one I came into. The only period that I can vaguely compare it to is the freezes of the 1980s, but that’s wholly inadequate. The era of HLB has been much more challenging.

After the freezes, the industry knew it would rebuild. We had a robust market for our products and putting more trees in the ground was an obvious course of action. In fact, much of the industry migrated south as we were in such a hurry to plant trees.

Now, things are much more murky. Not only is producing a crop more difficult and expensive, but also consumers aren’t drinking orange juice like they used to.

The load is clearly heavy on everyone in the Florida citrus industry. But I refuse to be a pessimist; even after the USDA forecast our orange crop at 74 million boxes, which would mark the smallest production in 50 years.

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Silver Linings

I like to think the decade of HLB as a market correction to our industry. Using a “glass is half full” prism, I see an industry getting leaner and meaner. Growing a crop of citrus has become so advanced and so expensive, only the best producers remain. As Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said recently, the time of the “hobbyist” grower is gone. The time of doing it like your dad did is gone, and only serious farmers need apply.

Through technology, such as variable rate applications and advanced foliar nutrition programs, these expert agriculturists can still produce high-quality crops. Growers are even looking at the quality of water and how it can help a tree infected with HLB produce a crop knowing that high levels of acid-neutralizing bicarbonates in irrigation water contribute to greening-related root damage in citrus.

Growing Promise

The key now is to get more trees in the ground. Some experts estimate we need to plant 20 million trees over the next five years to support the existing infrastructure. We need fruit to fuel the processing plants and packinghouses across the state, not to mention all of the ancillary businesses that make up our 62,000 jobs and $10.7 billion per year economic impact.

We are going to get there. Mutual is aggressively pushing a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan that would allow growers to immediately expense the cost of planting trees rather than do it over the standard 14-year period. This favorable tax treatment, coupled with a host of processor and government incentive programs, should provide growers with hearty financial incentives to plant trees.

The promising research should help, too. The EPA soon will grant a Section 18 emergency exemption for two bactericides that will help provide therapy for infected trees. And thermal therapy is showing promise increasing yields on trees with HLB. Growers will plant the new trees on rootstocks that scientists have shown are tolerant to the disease.

We’ve lost a lot of small citrus farms and multigenerational growers over the past decade. But I remain convinced that family farms will remain the backbone of this industry even after our “market correction” is over. Growers like the Blacks of Ft. Meade and the Storys and Hunts of Lake Wales are all in even amid this environment. They’ve become better growers studying the latest methods and feel the reward is worth the risk.

So, keep your head up during this season and remember — we are too resilient to fail. And we won’t.

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Avatar for Aaron Morrison Aaron Morrison says:

We work with a Grower that in his own estimation will harvest in a week or two from today, a 100% increase + or – in Navels over last year. The trees he is harvesting from were scheduled to be pushed over as they were beyond saving. No where in the article do I see the application of a affordable Certified Natural Foliar Nutrient offered as a solution. The grower is now using this product on all his trees, as his trees show a complete reversal of Greening Symptoms. Lets halt the loss of Citrus Farmers in America. This is not an ad for the sale of the 100% Organic Product I distribute. This is a notice to any Citrus Farmer to advise them that we can save their trees and reverse the decline in productivity in the Florida Citrus Industry, one Backbone Farmer at a time.Documented! Seasoned Citrus Farmer to Citrus Farmer actual results are available. Now that is very Good News in my opinion

Avatar for Aaron Morrison Aaron Morrison says:

Just to clarify your article does mention Foliar nutrient applications. I was referring to Natural 100% Certified Organic Nutrient applications. I see it as a two pronged approach to restore the Industry, one is through the restoration of existing trees that can be saved, by enabling the trees to coexist with HLB, and the other is as you suggest the replanting of trees more tolerant to HLB.

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