{"id":338006,"date":"2026-07-12T23:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T23:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/338006\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T23:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T23:47:09","slug":"florida-department-of-citrus-spotlights-fruit-harvest-that-exceed-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/338006\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Department of Citrus spotlights fruit harvest that exceed expectations"},"content":{"rendered":"

The citrus harvest this year exceeded expectations across Florida.<\/p>\n

The Florida Department of Citrus<\/a> announced this month that citrus production increased across all varieties for the 2025-26 crop year. The U.S. Department of\u00a0<\/a>Agriculture\u2019s<\/a> figures show that 12.92 million boxes of oranges were\u00a0harvested this year. That\u2019s a 5% increase from the previous year.<\/p>\n

Other harvests were also up, including grapefruit, which jumped to 1.35 million boxes. For grapefruit, that\u2019s an increase of 50,000 boxes. Tangerines and mandarin oranges also saw a 15% increase to 460,000 boxes combined.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a remarkable exclamation point on another challenging season for Florida citrus,\u201d said Shannon Shepp, Executive Director of the Florida Department of Citrus. \u201cWhile growers escaped hurricane threats last Fall, the Winter cold created sustained freezing temperatures and subsequent fruit loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citrus growers are also upbeat about future harvests as Gov.\u00a0Ron DeSantis signed a bill that the Florida Legislature approved for future citrus investment through the General Appropriations Act, which increases research, planting and promotion of citrus production infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are on record as historically providing the juiciest, best-tasting citrus in the world for many decades; and we are forging a path for many more highly productive years to come. This moment validates that even in the face of natural challenges, our growers are doing what\u2019s right to preserve and grow the Florida citrus industry,\u201d Shepp said.<\/p>\n

Shepp added that citrus growers are optimistic about crop production in the coming years, with state funding approved to help farmers combat the dreaded citrus greening, which has hampered production in Florida for about the past two decades. Millions of dollars in research have already been spent on trying to reduce the impact of greening.<\/p>\n

\u201cFailure is simply not an option for Florida citrus, and for Florida\u2019s top policymakers to stand up in such strong support, essentially saying, \u2018Not on my watch,\u2019 is an act for which this industry is so humbly grateful,\u201d Shepp said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The citrus harvest this year exceeded expectations across Florida. The Florida Department of Citrus announced this month that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[139090,50533,1483,28,139091,30,100,29,139092,58445,845,139093,58448,78704,7352,412,139094,58450,13329],"class_list":["post-338006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-boxes","tag-citrus-greening","tag-citrus-production","tag-florida","tag-florida-department-of-citrus","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-legislature","tag-florida-news","tag-general-appropriations-act","tag-grapefruit","tag-harvest","tag-mandarin-oranges","tag-oranges","tag-planting","tag-research","tag-ron-desantis","tag-shannon-shepp","tag-tangerines","tag-u-s-department-of-agriculture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}