Citrus Growers Think Outside the Crate in Pursuit of New Fruit
In partnership with: Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
Ensuring a high-quality product for the consumer and a promising future for the industry requires creative thinking, a commitment to research and the ability to pivot, and Florida citrus growers are dedicated to these elements.
Seedless Success
Based in Winter Haven, the century-old, family-run Noble Citrus is one of many fresh fruit growers across the state doing just that. The third generation of the Roe family sold their juice business to focus on breeding a new, flavorful, easy-to-peel tangerine with few to no seeds, as well as pummelos and other seedless citrus.
“I was visiting a customer in New York City in the early ’80s to sell our seedy Florida tangerines, and he showed me a tangerine from Spain,” says Quentin Roe, president of Noble Citrus. “It was a beautiful fruit that had great flavor, was seedless and came in cute cartons with a net over it. No one had yet heard of Spanish clementines, but it was obvious to me we needed to pivot to produce a seedless tangerine if our operation was going to survive. But we couldn’t just try to grow Spanish clementines in Florida soil; we had to do something innovative.”
And that’s what the Roe family did. Roe’s sister, Martha Burke, ran a tissue culture lab where she conducted advanced plant breeding research for gerbera daisies and philodendrons. She took on the challenge of breeding a new type of tangerine.
“We did something really unique,” Roe says.
Roe explains they bred first for grower characteristics: Was the fruit uniform? Did it fruit consistently? Was it free of the diseases of the day? This process alone took nine years.
Next, they focused on consumer characteristics: Does it look and taste good and peel easily? Is it low seed? Can it hold up in transportation?
Over 40 years, this patient, persistent, research-based approach has produced not only Juicy Crunch – what Roe calls “the best tangerine in the world today” – but other citrus products, including Autumn Honey, New Generation Florida Tangerines and the Florida Starburst Pummelo.
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A Win for Mandarin
In the 1990s, Mack Glass also needed to be innovative. His family had been producing row crops on their Marianna farm for 100 years, but water issues and a predicted decline in traditional row crop production in the Panhandle led him to consider diversification.
“These challenges were real, and I wanted to get ahead of them,” Glass says. “I was looking for a niche crop that we could produce and market, and I knew that satsumas had been produced in Jackson County in the early 1900s, so the climate and the soil were right. We did some research on the economic feasibility and planted our Cherokee Satsumas in March of 2002.”
It didn’t take long for the grove of 600 trees to be tested, as temperatures hit 13 degrees in the grove in January 2003.
“We had designed the grove with microjet irrigation, which also provides freeze protection,” Glass explains. “We didn’t lose a tree that year or since then.”
The growing process has been a success for Glass, and so has the reintroduction of the Cherokee Satsuma to the market. He explains that this seedless mandarin is sweet and easy to peel, making it a hit with children and school nutrition programs, which has become Glass’ market.
The satsuma’s flavor is winning over customers, and its hardiness is winning over growers.
“We are seeing a great deal of growth in this industry and have established the Cold Hardy Citrus Association to support the efforts of our growers and to identify other varieties we can grow in this area as well,” Glass says.
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Expanding the Market
IMG Citrus in Vero Beach has also found great success reestablishing a fruit that was the original grapefruit variety introduced to the state in the 1800s. The white grapefruit, which IMG Citrus markets as Hellos, is one of several popular citrus products grown by the company.
Sydney Allison, director of sales at IMG Citrus, explains that while white grapefruit has always had a following, red grapefruit became increasingly popular over the last few decades.
“Four years ago, we bought an existing grove of white grapefruit in Indian River County, which is known to produce the best grapefruit in the world,” she says. “While white grapefruit was being exported mostly to Japan in the last 30 years, we decided to reintroduce it in the U.S. market under the brand Hellos with imagery that enhances the Florida origin and the postcard dream of Florida beaches during the winter months.”
Customers agree on the taste and are happy to see white grapefruit back on their plates.
“All the trees in this 1,107-net-tree acres of groves are over 30 years old, which is important because the older the tree, the better the taste and quality of the fruit,” Allison explains.
Hellos are available from November to May. Most are shipped to the East Coast, with a growing market on the West Coast as well. Allison predicts a bright future for these and other IMG Citrus products.
“Hellos is an exceptional variety, and because our trees were planted prior to the onset of citrus greening, they have a strong foundation, which bodes well for future fruit production,” she says.
While citrus greening has been a real challenge for the citrus industry, Allison says it’s also been an opportunity.
“By tackling these challenges, we’ve become better growers because we focus on the overall health of every part of the tree,” Allison says. “We are committed to environmentally sustainable practices that are essential to ensuring the future of the citrus industry.”
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