The 2018-2019 Florida all orange forecast released today by the USDA Agricultural Statistics Board is 79.0 million boxes, 76 percent more than last season’s final production. The total includes 34.0 million boxes of non-Valencia oranges (early, midseason, and Navel varieties) and 45.0 million boxes of Valencia oranges. The Navel orange forecast, at 800 thousand boxes, accounts for 2.4 percent of the non-Valencia total.
The estimated number of bearing trees for all oranges is 49.9 million. Trees planted in 2015 and earlier are considered bearing this season. Field work for the latest Commercial Citrus Inventory was completed in June 2018. Attrition rates were applied to the results to determine the number of bearing trees which are used to weight and expand objective count data in the forecast model. A 9 year regression has been used for comparison purposes.
All references to “average,” “minimum” and “maximum” refer to the previous 10 seasons, excluding the 2017-2018 season, which was affected by Hurricane Irma. Average fruit per tree includes both regular bloom and the first late bloom
For the full USDA report, including many more graphs and statistics, click here.