The December episode of the All In For Citrus podcast featured Muhammad Shahid, assistant professor at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and based at the North Florida Research and Education Center. He discussed winter preparation practices relevant to Florida's cold-hardy citrus region, where freeze events are a recurring production factor.
Alongside cold management considerations, Shahid outlined trial results for a mandarin selection showing suitability for the region. The variety, UF-1424, is commonly referred to as Greenie due to its limited external colour development in southern citrus areas. While the fruit often remains green, it has been used in fruit displays based on internal quality and flavour attributes.
In trial work conducted by Shahid, UF-1424 averaged 14.5 Brix. The variety has also shown cold tolerance, ease of peeling, and some tolerance to huanglongbing. According to Shahid, fruit colour development has been stronger in the cold-hardy citrus region, where cooler temperatures support external colour change compared with more southern production areas.
One of the considerations evaluated during the trials was how the fruit would perform on commercial packing lines, as the variety has a bell-shaped tip that raised concerns among growers and packers.
"For the past three years, I have observed that this is a good variety candidate for this area," Shahid said. "The fruit does have a small neck on the top, so the growers and packers were concerned that it might be a problem on the packing line. This season, I harvested about 700 pounds of the Greenie variety and ran the fruit on a collaborating citrus packer's line. It went very well and not even a single fruit was ruptured."
Shahid said the combination of cold tolerance and handling performance suggests the variety warrants further attention from growers operating in Florida's northern citrus areas. The discussion forms part of broader efforts to adapt citrus production systems to regional climate conditions while evaluating cultivar performance under commercial handling and packing conditions.
Source: Citrus Industry
