May 18, 2013
Orlando, FL - January 12, 2013
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is lowering its Florida citrus forecast by 3 percent this season.
Agriculture officials said Friday that Florida will produce an estimated 142 million boxes of citrus during the 2012-2013 growing season.
Agricultural officials say forecasting is an imperfect science and this year's rainfall and disease made predicting the crop especially tricky.
The majority of the decrease in the estimate is coming from Valencia oranges which decreased 3 million boxes to 76 million boxes.
Early-to-midseason oranges decreased 1 million boxes to 66 million boxes.
Each box of oranges weighs about 90 pounds.
