Despite Decrease In Florida, Orange Production Up Nationwide

A rise reported it U.S. orange crop production by less than 1%, per USDA's latest crop production forecast. The main factor was an 8% increase in California's all orange crop year over year, by over 51 billion boxes. In addtion, "California's non-Valencia's went from 39 million to 43 million [from the previous year" noted NASS' Mark Hudson. He said that offsets revised numbers down for Florida's crop.

"For Valencia, we were down three million boxes.  We went from 23 million in March to 20 million in April."

Contributing to a month over month decrease of 7% in Florida's all Orange production.

"A lot was due to the drop.  It went up 5% to 51% from previous month, and it also took two more pieces of fruit to fill a 90 pound box of oranges."

Hudson added this is the largest drop percentage for Florida Valencia oranges in an non hurricane year.

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