A combination of drought and citrus greening has meant a particularly difficult year for the Florida citrus industry, threatening to bring overall shipments down by around 10%.

Duke Chadwell, manager of the Citrus Administrative Committee, cited low numbers across the board.

By the close of tangerine and tangelo production, shipments for the two specialty varieties were down 17%. To date, grapefruit shipments are down 7%, in particular for exports which have dipped 10%.

"When we got the crop estimate in October, there was optimism that we would at least ship approximately the same about of fruit fresh as the previous year. And that was approximately 30 million cartons," Chadwell said.

"However, after the estimate and the season was progressing, with the drop and some quality conditions in the fruit, we’re going to be down approximately 10% from last year when it’s all said and done."

To date, shipments of all citrus fruits are down 9%.

Fruit loss due to dropping has been one of the worst for a non-freeze year, explained Doug Bournique, executive vice president of the Indian River Citrus League.

"We’ve seen a more aggressive drop rate and it’s something that really accelerated. We’re not sure if it’s because of the extensive drought we had earlier in the year but the dropping has hit everywhere from  Tampa to Coco Beach and all the way down the middle of the state,"  Bournique said.

For an association that exports around 80% of its fruit, greening has made it difficult to meet demand in top importing regions like Japan and Europe.

"My guys that come in here, we could sell everything we grow. Indian River is in strong demand.  It’s the Rolls-Royce of fruit. Everyone knows it. Japan knows it. Europe knows it. These guys, if they had more fruit, they would sell it," he said.

"Our growers are trying their hardest to plant in the face of this disease pressure and trying to understand how to bridge the gap and how to keep the bug that spreads greening and canker off of the  fruit."

Part of the push to bridge the supply gap will be more tree planting. Like the fruit, however, Florida citrus trees these days also come in short supply.

"They are planning to plant as much as they can as soon as they can. There is a shortage of trees because nurseries are fighting to keep disease pressure away from them.  The supply of trees has diminished so all is tough right now. The disease pressure is high. The tree inventory is low and the solutions aren’t there yet," he said.

The effect of the disease can be seen particularly in the industry's budget priorities. As greening continues to baffle growers, money is being pulled away from product advertising and being put into research.

"We’ve got US$66 million of grower money invested in [research] already that would normally go to orange juice commercials or grapefruit commercials. That’s how much they hoard away from that into pure research. That just said, we’ve got to have this or we won’t have anything in five or 10 years," Bournique explained.

"When you’ve got your investment in a limited tree and your tree has got disease pressure, you hope and pray the money invested in research pans out. That’s where we are. We’ve invested our future not in advertising and expanding our shelf space. Our future is in expanding our science base."

The problem for citrus growers, unfortunately is that the wait for answers can be agonizingly slow. Tree research take can years to produce concrete answers. As Bournique explained, however, for those who have their lives invested in the industry, they are all in.

"The guys and girls that produce citrus in Florida and still produce the finest citrus on the planet do so many things to get there. It's tough," he said.

"I remember a guy telling me when I first was hired not to fear; all of your growers are going to keep growing until all of their money is gone. Once it's in your blood, it's such a neat lifestyle."

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