Mixon Brothers Join Forces With Citrus Expert Leotti to Expand CUPS Efforts
by MAGGIE THARP
photos provided
Can Citrus Under Protective Screen offer relief for Florida citrus growers battling citrus greening? Mixon Family Farms is betting on it, bringing on board an industry expert and planning expansion of their current CUPS facility.
Ed Leotti, a University of Florida alumnus with 40-plus years of experience in Florida agriculture, has teamed up with the Mixon brothers — Jerry and Keith — and will act as their vice president of production. Leotti will primarily focus on their aggressive expansion plans for CUPS.
Currently, the Mixons have 200 acres of CUPS, and their first expansion project will be a 240-acre planting project in collaboration with Florida citrus industry veterans, the Strangs. Over the next 10 years, their goal is to grow to 1,500 acres of citrus using the CUPS method, which they forecast will allow them to produce nearly 1 million boxes of citrus per year.
“Many growers have pondered, ‘How good could we grow a tree in the absence of HLB?’ Well, CUPS provides that opportunity,” Leotti says. “So, we can now bring our improved knowledge to produce high-quality, healthy fruit in a sustainable manner that emphasizes input conservation, biological synergy, and soil enrichment. … But the main thing that I considered coming here was the opportunity to work with people like Jerry and Keith. The Mixons are committed, progressive, well-capitalized, and down-to-earth family-oriented people.”
The Mixons began exploring CUPS in 2016, inspired by an experimental structure created by Dr. Arnold W. Schumann, professor of Soil Fertility and Water Quality, at the UF/IFAS Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred.
CUPS employs the use of polyethylene screen enclosures to guard citrus plants against the psyllids that transmit HLB and allow plants to be grown more efficiently.
“When Jerry and I saw [the CUPS structures], it was like, ‘Wow—here is a way to grow beautiful citrus with great Florida citrus flavor and juiciness,’ which I think has always been our claim to fame,” Keith Mixon recalls. “Our goal with the first project was to understand not only the growing challenges but also understand the structure and what challenges the structure was going to give us.”
While CUPS offers protection against psyllids, it also presents new challenges that the Mixons and other farmers who use this method need to learn to mitigate. In the face of recent tropical storms and hurricanes, for example, the Mixons discovered that screen material and durability are key.
“Too strong and the structure is at risk of being blown over. Too weak and the screen material requires too many repairs,” Keith Mixon explains.
Other challenges that the Mixons are learning to adapt to include the new pest issues that arise inside the CUPS structures. While the structures keep some destructive pests—like citrus psyllids—away from the trees, they also provide a “vegetatively dense,” enclosed environment for other pests, according to Leotti. The Mixons say they’ve experimented but not yet perfected the use of beneficial predators to curb the new pest issues in the structures.
But challenges like these are to be expected, and the Mixons say the benefits of CUPS far outweigh any difficulties. Not only do citrus trees flourish underneath the protective structures, but crops also reach full production faster—roughly three to four years faster, according to Leotti—and with far higher packout rates.
“One of the things that’s most rewarding is the packout percentages,” Jerry Mixon says. “We are continually getting 95 percent plus packouts, which relates to size, fruit cleanliness, and quality of fruit.”
Despite the promising production numbers, the Mixons say they are one of only a few growers employing the CUPS method. CUPS requires a substantial initial capital investment that’s not possible for every farmer, Jerry Mixon says, and it requires ongoing maintenance and monitoring.
“I think the future looks very bright for CUPS growing. I’ve often been asked, ‘Is it going to replace outdoor growing?’ It would be difficult to see that in my head,” Jerry Mixon ponders. “Is it an opportunity to produce some really great fruit? Yes, it is.”
With the hiring of Leotti, the involvement of family members bringing their talents to the project, and a tested approach to growing high-quality citrus, the Mixons feel optimistic about their ability to impact the future of Florida citrus.
“We feel that what made Florida the king of citrus still exists today. We have a great climate, we have great land, we have great citrus knowledge, and we have a great reputation in the world market,” Keith Mixon emphasizes. “With that said, greening is devastating. It saddens us to see and feel the pain of lower production and lower fruit quality. Simply said, CUPS allows us to let Florida citrus be what it used to be. And that’s why we’re investing in CUPS.”