Despite Freeze, Growers See Better Tree Health, Improved Quality
by RYAN MILEJCZAK
The USDA’s final citrus forecast for the 2025-2026 season delivered some much-needed hope July 10: All oranges increased to 12.92 million boxes, up 6 percent from April and up 5% from last season.
For growers, however, that win came with a bit of a bumpy ride thanks to a damaging freeze that cut into production, particularly for Valencias. Even so, they saw something different this season.
Improved tree health, better fruit quality, and encouraging results from greening therapies seemed to raise hopes across the board.
At the outset of the season, sentiment was generally positive.
“Going into the season, we were feeling more positive than we had in some time,” recounts Steven Callaham, CEO of the Dundee Citrus Growers Association. “We’ve been seeing progress in some of the therapies we’ve been doing and felt like we had better tree health going into the fall and a good crop set hanging on the tree.”
Other growers shared that optimism. Thanks in part to a hurricane-free year, coupled with progress on greening therapies, many were hopeful for a great season. Unfortunately, that outlook changed in late January and early February, when one of the worst freezes Florida has seen in a decade struck.
“Cold is what really impacted growers this season,” said Matt Joyner, Executive Vice President and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual.
“A lot of the fruit we had planned on packaging for the fresh market was rendered unsuitable by the freeze,” Callaham says.
Valencias were among the hardest-hit varieties.
“When the freeze hit, we were done with pomelos, tangerines, and fall varieties, but we saw a tremendous impact on the Valencia crop,” said Quentin Roe, president at Wm. G. Roe & Sons. “A very high percentage of that crop went to juice due to damage.”
Even so, the season was far from a worst-case scenario.
“Our volumes were actually up this year,” Roe reports.
Even growers who harvested less fruit than expected say the outcome exceeded their expectations.
“As bad as it was, we thought it was going to be a lot worse,” said Michael Matteson, a fourth-generation citrus grower in Lake Wales.
A big reason for that resilience was the continued progress growers are seeing from therapies used to combat greening. According to Roe, oxytetracycline (OTC) injections had a substantial impact on tree health and fruit quality.
“OTC not only affected the Brix and tree health, it gave us more and larger fruit,” Roe recounts.
Callaham has seen similar success with Citrus Under Protective Screen, or CUPS.
“We’ve been aggressive with developing CUPS groves as one of the ways we’re trying to mitigate the loss of production and fruit quality,” he says. “Our CUPS groves did not suffer any freeze damage, and we harvested a better crop this year than last primarily due to CUPS acreage.”
Soon, growers will have yet another tool available. In April, the EPA approved the CarriCea rootstock, which was designed to tolerate greening.
“We’re definitely planning to use CarriCea, and we’re cautiously optimistic that the trees will perform and produce the amount and quality of fruit that we need,” Callaham says. “We’re excited to get some of them and see how they do.”
That optimism extends well beyond individual groves.
“We finally have tools that are really moving the needle in the fight against greening,” Joyner says. “We’re really seeing that going into this season, with better tree health and fruit size and quality. This is a huge positive, because it means what we have is working, and we will continue to build on that success.”
The CRAFT program, which supports growers in the fight against greening, continues to play a major role as well.
“The CRAFT program is a blessing for us,” Matteson says.
Together, these advances have given growers renewed confidence in the industry’s future.
“Everyone has a renewed sense of optimism,” said Joyner. “We had our annual industry conference two weeks ago, and the positivity and enthusiasm of the tools we have and the research still coming down the pipeline is palpable.”
This doesn’t mean the industry’s challenges have disappeared.
“Even with all the positives and the optimism we’re seeing, obviously we still have a long road ahead of us before we’re in the clear,” says Matteson. “But we’re fighting to try to keep it as big a part of Florida as we can.”
As growers look forward, many are expecting the momentum to continue.
“We’re feeling good about next season. We had a good bloom, and a good fruit set, and we just need some rain right now,” says Callaham.
“Riding around, our trees look healthy, and we still have a pretty good crop on the tree,” adds Matteson. “We haven’t done any estimating yet, but everything looks fairly positive, especially considering what we went through with the freeze.”
No matter what challenges they face, growers remain committed to Florida citrus.
“Difficulties definitely exist,” says Joyner, “but I’d hate for the good aspects of what’s going on in the industry to be overshadowed by things like hurricanes and freezes that we can’t control. Where we can control things, our growers are working hard and seeing results.”