Florida’s Orange Production Up for 2012-13

 The National Agricultural Statistics Service is predicting that Florida will once again lead the nation in orange production with a 5 percent larger crop than last year.

Florida's orange growers are expecting to produce a 5 percent larger crop in the 2012-13 season than they did in the 2011-12 season based on an estimated projection from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Actually, the estimate comes from the National Agricultural Statistics Service or NASS as it is more commonly known. NASS is the statistical branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that conducts surveys and issues some 500 different annual national reports on a variety of subjects ranging from agricultural production to economics, demographics and the environment. NASS also the agency that is charged with conducting the nation’s Census of Agriculture every five years.

The history of the Statistics Service’s agricultural reports dates back to 1905 when the first USDA Crop Reporting Board was created and then later renamed as the Agricultural Statistics Board. Reorganization at the USDA in 1961 led to the official creation of the National Statistical Reporting Service, which later morphed into the National Agricultural Statistics Service or NASS as we know it today.

Today, producers, farm organizations, agribusinesses, lawmakers and government agencies all rely heavily on the information generated by NASS and the latest report from the agency and the first estimate of this year’s seasonal crops. NASS is predicting that Florida alone will produce around 154 million 90-pound boxes of oranges this season compared with the 146.6 million boxes the state produced last season. The numbers are good news for Florida’s citrus producers as the NASS projection takes into account the fact that although the total number of commercial crop citrus trees in the state has fallen by 1 percent to some 56.8 million trees, those remaining trees put out more fruit because the average amount of produced by each individual fruit tree has grown by nearly 14 percent compared to last season.

In addition to estimating the total number of boxes of oranges produced, it is also important to the citrus industry to know how much orange juice all those boxes will yield because the majority of Florida’s orange crop goes toward making orange juice. This season, NASS is predicting each 90-pound box of oranges will generate 1.61 gallons of 42-degrees Brix frozen concentrated orange juice. Brix is the term used to designate the percentage of weight of a solution of sugars and acids measured at sea level at 20 degrees Celsius. Last season, the Florida orange crop was able to generate a bit more juice at 1.63 gallons per 90 pound box, but this year’s tally of 1.61 gallons is not far off the mark but still quite a bit under the record of 1.67 gallons set in the 2007-08 season. As a matter of comparison, the USDA’s Statistical Service is estimating that the orange crop from California this season will produce about 59.5 million 80-pound boxes of oranges.compared with the 59 million California produced in the 2011-12 season and Texas is expected to come in a distant third place with about 1.4 million 85-pound boxes.