Saving The Crisafulli Navel Orange

Steve Crisafulli Receives Family Tree

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The flurry of activity in the development of new citrus varieties has been fast and furious in recent years. Waiting in the wings could be the perfect easy-peel, seedless variety to take on the “Cutie� or a rootstock that conveys more tolerance to HLB.

As new varieties come online, some varieties that are a part of the state’s citrus heritage are almost lost. The Crisafulli navel is one such variety. The navel gained legendary status in the Titusville, Cocoa, and Merritt Island areas years ago. The fruit was highly sought after by commercial and gift fruit packers.

Tracing Lineage

The original line is believed to have been selected from early navel orange plantings by Marion Whaley, who planted on Merritt Island from 1900-1945. John Crisafulli identified the most promising budwood and planted a grove on the island on sour orange rootstock in the early 1950s.

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The legend goes original trees were planted in an unusual way. The land is essentially a coral base covered with a layer of sandy soil. For each tree, a hole was drilled into the coral and filled with a stick of dynamite. The explosion craters left behind were then filled in with top soil and trees planted. Over time, the roots made their way into the coral network. People swore this made the planting nearly hurricane proof with its coral-based root structure.

While navel oranges are not known for their yield per acre in Florida, the Crisafulli navel was reportedly very productive and grew a fruit uniform in shape and size. Grower Talbert Cooper reported production as high as 900 boxes per acre with the orange on the Merritt Island planting.

The Merritt Island grove was eventually incorporated into NASA property and was within a stone’s throw of the Space Shuttle landing zone. The planting was continuously farmed until the Department of Homeland Security was established after 9/11 and clearance became too difficult to acquire because of the grove’s location on NASA property. After this, the trees fell into poor health and the variety was quickly heading toward extinction.

To The Rescue

The Crisafulli navel was first rescued by Cooper in 1995. The budwood was cleaned up by the Department of Plant Industry (DPI) and released in 2003. But the variety was threatened again when Rolland Dilley’s nursery was burned during canker eradication, resulting in the loss of clean source stock. So, again the navel was under threat.
The New Varieties Development & Management Corporation (NVDMC) had numerous requests to find and preserve the orange, but had a very difficult time in finding a source. In 2010, Peter Chaires, executive director of NVDMC and regular Florida Grower contributor, with the help of Phil Rucks, owner of Rucks Nursery, and Bob Adair, Florida Research Center for Agricultural Sustainability, got clearance from Homeland Security to re-enter the Merritt Island grove to seek budwood to be re-entered into DPI cleanup program.
“When we showed up to the block, it was so overgrown we were half afraid of going in there and getting snake bit,� says Rucks. “The challenge was finding some trees halfway decent enough to find budwood to cut off. Despite the conditions, we found a few and cut wood off four or five trees and cut a couple hundred bud eyes.�

From the grove, the wood went to Dr. Peggy Sieburth at the DPI facility in Winter Haven. She had the task of cleaning up the source material. “Peggy is probably the best there is at this and did a really great job cleaning up this variety,� says Rucks. “If it had gone another year or so, it might have been too late to rescue the trees. The grove where we cut wood hadn’t had any care for at least five years.�

The variety is now officially available by the name Crisafulli 956-6. It is a public domain offering. Rucks Nursery will be available to grow the trees, and budwood mother source trees will be available to other interested nurseries.

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