Storms Cause South Florida to Lose 13 Percent of Its Citrus Groves

Sep. 17–LAKE WALES — Six hurricane-ravaged counties across the South Florida citrus belt lost nearly 13 percent of their commercial grove acreage and more than 4 million trees to the storms and other factors.

“This has probably been the biggest impact to the state that we’ve ever seen with maybe one exception in the freeze years (of the 1980s),” said Robert Terry of the Florida Agricultural Statistics Service in Orlando on Friday. “This was a huge impact.”

Terry supervised the agency’s recount of citrus acreage and trees in DeSoto, Hardee, Indian River, Martin, Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties from January to June. The six counties account for 40 percent of the state’s citrus crop.

St. Lucie was the hardest hit with the loss of 18,560 grove acres, down 22.4 percent, to 64,427 acres, according to the report released to the Citrus Crop Estimates Advisory Committee. It lost nearly 2.2 million trees, about half of them grapefruit.

The Statistics Service had also planned to recount Polk County but could not finish after losing staff to the Citrus Canker Eradication Program. Polk is the state’s largest citrus producer and the only county hit by all three hurricanes that struck South Florida — Charley, Frances and Jeanne.

Terry said the citrus losses in Polk were not comparable to the other counties because wind speeds had weakened by the time the storms reached here.

The recount was done at the request of the citrus industry because the 2004 biennial census was completed just before Hurricane Charley struck.

“We knew it would be a big number. That’s why we did it,” Terry said.

Not all of the losses stemmed directly from the hurricanes, he said. Among the other factors were loss to diseases and to economic development, particularly among the Southeast Florida counties.

One major factor was citrus canker, a bacterial disease, that has resulted in the destruction of 15,959 commercial grove acres since August 2004. Officials with the Canker Eradication Program attr ibute most of that loss to the spread of the bacteria across the state by the hurricanes.

Census takers did not attempt to determine the cause of the missing trees or acreage, Terry said. “For our purposes, it was either there or not,” he said.

The Statistics Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, uses the tree count as a key factor in estimating the size of Florida’s orange, grapefruit and specialty citrus crops. The initial estimate for the 2005-06 season is scheduled for release Oct. 12.

The citrus crop estimate plays a major role in determining the farm price growers get for their fruit.

The losses are significant but still less than acreage lost to major freezes in 1983 and 1985, said Bob Behr, the chief economist with Florida’s Natural Growers in Lake Wales and chairman of the advisory committee.

The 1984 census shows the loss of 86,491 acres, and the 1986 census shows a loss of 136,873 acres.

Another census of the entire state will be done next year. The Statistics Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is considering doing another revision of the tree numbers before the next full census if Washington officials approve, Terry said.

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