Hopes Buoyed by CRAFT, Research, Varieties, Weather
by RYAN MILEJCZAK
Hurricanes and greening have made the past couple of citrus seasons quite challenging here in Florida. With the 2025-2026 citrus season officially underway, we reached out to growers and industry professionals to learn what they’re expecting for the season.
“I think we’re expecting a good season,” says Matt Joyner, Executive Vice President and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual. “Most growers are pretty optimistic about what they’re seeing out there right now.”
Morgan McKenna Porter, Operations Manager at McKenna Brothers Inc, seconds this sentiment.
“The best way to describe how we’re going into the season is cautiously optimistic,” she says. “It feels like we’ve set a better crop in terms of quantity and size, and early quality tests are looking good, but it’s a little early to get out the permanent marker.”
This kind of optimism has been in increasingly short supply among growers and industry professionals in the past decade, a result of the devastating effects of citrus greening and hurricanes.
According to the Florida Commercial Citrus Inventory report, Florida’s citrus acreage declined 24% compared to last year — a loss of 66,519 acres. In addition, the Florida Citrus Production report showed that total production across all classes of citrus had fallen 28%. That said, Polk County still leads the state in citrus production, with 3.8 million boxes in 2024-2025.
“You can only be punched and pushed so many times until you’re brought to your knees,” Porter says. “Lots of people make the best decisions for them and their families. But I don’t focus on that; I focus on those of us that are still part of Florida’s flagship industry and will remain here.”
For growers who are still active in citrus,there have been a number of exciting developments to take advantage of. One of these is the more than $100 million the Florida Legislature earmarked for the Citrus Research and Field Trial (CRAFT) Foundation.
“The CRAFT program is a real bright spot right now,” says Joyner.
He cites the “unprecedented response” of more than 2,000 applications for CRAFT as further indication of the excitement and growing interest in replanting.
“We’re thrilled with the response and the desire to move forward, rebuild, renovate, and see acreage rebound.”
“We’re really excited about CRAFT and the investment made by our legislature,” says Christian Spinosa of Putnam Groves, a fifth-generation citrus and beef cattle rancher. “I’m excited to see the different trees going in the ground in the next few years.”
One of the key aspects of this program is fighting greening, aka HLB, and the citrus psyllids that spread it.
“Everything that you do in the grove to fight HLB is worth the investment,” says Porter.
For McKenna Brothers, one strategy is not only planting new varieties but also bringing back what they call “throwback” varieties.
“We’ve been bringing these throwback varieties forward again and aggressively planting Parson Browns and Robles. We probably would have been making these decisions anyways, but CRAFT has enabled us to do more and go to the next level,” explains Porter.
“Research has given us a lot in terms of therapies and varietals,” adds Joyner. “We continue to see growers utilizing the newest therapies that are available, and anecdotally, a lot of this has been in the fields a couple of seasons and we’re better able to glean info on what’s working from growers.”
Of course, the CRAFT program and new citrus research are far from the only things driving optimism in the citrus industry. As any Floridian has likely noticed, it’s been a very quiet hurricane season so far.
“I try not to get carried away, there’s still a month of hurricane season left. But knock on wood, we’ve made it this far without any major storms,” says Spinosa. “If we can get through the season without a hurricane, we have an opportunity to have a decent crop this year and start building the health of these trees for next year.”
“We’re really hoping, for the whole state and not just the citrus industry, that we can catch a break from storms,” says Porter. “We’re very hopeful, and dedicated in our prayers asking for a calm hurricane season, and hopefully no freezes either.”
Of course, storms and greening aren’t the only challenges for the industry.
“Labor is always a big challenge,” says Spinosa. “That probably will be the biggest challenge moving forward for a crop like citrus with no mechanical harvesting.”
“Every orange that’s harvested is touched by an individual hand,” adds Porter. “That’s the very cool part, but also the very hard and expensive part, of growing oranges. You have to work with labor, and they’ve put in long, hard hours and deserve compensation, but when you have less fruit, harvesting is more expensive, so it’s a hard balance on the bottom line.”
Despite the challenges, Florida’s growers remain dedicated to rebuilding the citrus industry.
“If we’re talking about a rebound of our industry, it’s going to be a tough runup, and it will take years of persistence to overcome the challenges and get back to where we want to be as an industry,” says Joyner, before adding with more than a touch of excitement: “But boy, we’re really starting to see the pieces come together!”
“Things don’t happen overnight,” Porter explains. “You don’t go to the gym and work out once. It’s a dedicated process. This is still the best place in the world to grow an orange, and there will always be a market for a high quality orange.”