Acreage for navel oranges in the state of California is anticipated to be slightly down from last year, according to a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report. The results of the survey, which gathers acreage information on all of California's citrus varieties, also show declines in new acres planted for mandarins this year.The California office for the U.S. Department of Agriculture conducts an annual survey of the state's citrus growers to provide information on plantings and total acreage. This year, the report estimates that total bearing acreage for the state's navel orange crop will be down 1,000 acres. The estimated total bearing acreage for California's navel oranges for the 2011-2012 season is 137,000 acres, down from last season's acreage of 139,000 acres.
Plantings for valencia oranges are set to be much higher in 2012 than in previous years. Plantings for 2012 are reported to reach 119 acres, which are 111 more acres than were planted last year and the most acres planted since 2005. With 84 new acres, Tulare County will contain most of the new acreage. The county's new plantings for 2012 are set to be much higher than last year's new plantings of 5 acres.
New acreage for mandarins will be less this year than in previous years. New plantings for 2012 are expected to reach 602 acres, which is much less than 2011's new plantings, which were 2,022 acres, and a far cry from 2009's mark of 4,235 acres. Most of the drop in new plantings will come from Kern County and Tulare County, which, from 2011 to 2012, pared down new acreage from 974 acres to 24 acres and 619 acres to 245 acres, respectively. The mandarin varieties which showed the steepest declines in new plantings were clementines, which had a new acreage decrease from 447 acres in 2011 to 26 acres in 2012, and tangos, which had a new acreage decrease from 722 in 2011 to 244 in 2012.