The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has made a slight reduction to the 2008/09 Florida orange crop forecast, with its April predictions showing a 400,000 box reduction to 157.6m boxes.
Early and mid-season oranges are where the proposed reduction will take place, with the USDA now forecasting a total of 84.6m boxes from previous estimates of 85m boxes.
Projections for Valencia oranges remained at 73m boxes, with grapefruit still expected to come in at 23m boxes.
Specialty fruit remained steady at 1.2m boxes of tangelos and 4m boxes of tangerines, according to the USDA report.
'This is a manageable crop and that's important because we need to start moving out excess juice inventories,' said Michael Sparks, executive vice-president and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual. 'The USDA has taken off several million boxes since its initial estimate in October so we are anticipating that this should have a positive effect on grower returns.'
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