Orange Crop Looked Small Before Hurricanes

NASS released their first all orange production forecast last week.  But, before breaking down the numbers and looking at trends, NASS’ Mark Hudson notes.

“All the measurements for the October forecast were done prior to the arrival of Milton.” 

Which, Hudson said, carved a path through Florida orange orchards in the central part of the state.  Even with numbers reflecting a pre-Milton period, Florida's first all orange forecast was down 16% for 15 million boxes.  Meanwhile, in California;

“California's was 39 million navel oranges, and 8.7 million of Valencia.  That means the total is 47.7 million for all oranges.”

Bringing in domestic all orange production forecast for October at 2.62 billion tons down 5% from the 2023-24 final utilization, this includes Texas reporting 850,000 tons of production this season.

If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail glenn.vaagen@townsquaremedia.com