ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. — Florida's citrus industry has been struggling over the last few years, but the United States Department of Agriculture recently forecasted a strong citrus season.
WPTV spoke to a citrus farmer in St. Lucie County to find out how the season is shaping out.
It's the start of citrus picking season, and Jeff Schorner, president of Al's Family Farms near Fort Pierce, is busy at work.
He's preparing for what he expects to be a great citrus season for the first time in a long time.
"After the work that we put in this year in the grove and the weather that's been provided by the good Lord, I see the best year we've had in at least three or four years," Schorner said.
They're coming off a bad season last year.
"We had Hurricane Ian. It knocked a bunch of our fruit off, we thought about 20/25%. Then it had a reinforcing hurricane called Nicole," Schorner said. "Before you knew it, we were down to 50% of our normal citrus crop."
He said they put quite a bit of work in over the summer to turn things around for this year.
"We put things like chelated iron and different types of elements that the trees need to help them green back up and get strong again after the stress they had from being in standing water for too long," Schorner said.
They're also fighting citrus diseases and working on unique ways to keep the trees alive.
Vero Beach
Orange juice brands no longer making juice from 100% Florida-grown oranges
At Al's Family Farms, they're using soil from the former Los Angeles Dodgers spring training stadium in Vero Beach to nourish test trees from the USDA that'll be the future of Florida's citrus.
"This is a mandarin tree that seems to be very resistant to the diseases of the day, particularly citrus greening disease," Schorner said. "It's tolerant. In other words, it can produce fruit even in the presence of that disease."
They're making every effort to keep Florida's citrus industry alive.
"There used to be about 300 of us, and now there seems to be about a handful of us left," Schorner said.
He believes a comeback is on the horizon.
"I think if we're successful and other people see our successes, they will come back," Schorner said.
