Florida Citrus Industry History

The largest Florida citrus crop in the federal series was 304,450,000 boxes in the 1997-1998 crop year, and the 2025-2026 crop was 15,660,000 boxes.

The long series comes from the Florida Citrus Statistics 2024-2025 report, published in March 2026 by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services with the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, which lists production for every crop year from 1925-1926 onward (Florida Citrus Statistics 2024-2025). The 1925-1926 crop was 9,500,000 boxes of oranges, 7,600,000 of grapefruit and 730,000 of other citrus, a total of 17,830,000 boxes. Oranges alone reached 244,000,000 boxes in 1997-1998, and the 2003-2004 crop still totaled 291,800,000 boxes.

Rows through 2022-2023 come from the March 2026 Florida Citrus Statistics; the 2025-2026 row comes from the August 27, 2026 Citrus Summary. Readers comparing the two reports will see that they disagree on 2024-2025: the March report lists 14,570,000 boxes of all citrus and 12,200,000 of oranges, while the August summary lists 14,650,000 and 12,280,000 for the same season. Both are NASS figures, and the statistics report notes that current season estimates are open for revision in April and August.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the NASS Florida Citrus Statistics 2024-2025 tables, the August 2026 Citrus Summary, the October 9, 2026 crop forecast, four National Weather Service freeze records and Chapter 601 of the Florida Statutes.

National Weather Service records tie freezes in 1835, 1894-1895, 1899, 1977 and 1989 to heavy Florida citrus damage, and the 1890s freezes put many north-central and northeast Florida producers out of business.

The National Weather Service calls the February 7 to 10, 1835 cold wave the earliest well-documented severe freeze in Florida, with 4 degrees at Tallahassee, 8 at Jacksonville and Pensacola and ice at the edges of the St. Johns River; its chronology states that all citrus was killed (NWS Florida hazardous weather, February). The winter of 1894 to 1895 brought two severe freezes, one in mid December and one in mid February, separated by an unusually warm spell. Trees damaged in December had put out tender new growth before the February freeze, which left them especially vulnerable (NWS fact sheet on the 1894-1895 freezes).

That fact sheet adds that the 1894-1895 damage and another freeze in 1899 put many north-central and northeast Florida producers out of business (NWS). In January 1977 an Arctic outbreak brought snow to Miami Beach and Palm Beach and a severe freeze that affected all of the state's citrus and vegetable crops, and a U.S. Department of Agriculture report quoted by the Weather Service put the crop loss at 35 percent for citrus and 95 to 100 percent for vegetables; the freeze was estimated to cost the Florida economy $2 billion in 1977 dollars (NWS Florida hazardous weather, January).

The December 22 to 25, 1989 hard freeze reached all 67 Florida counties. The Weather Service records a loss of about 30 percent of the $1.4 billion citrus crop and says the damage left tens of thousands of migrant farm workers unemployed (NWS Florida hazardous weather, December). The production series records all citrus at 154,185,000 boxes in 1989-1990 and 213,850,000 in 1988-1989 (Florida Citrus Statistics).

Chapter 601 of the Florida Statutes, which may be cited as the Florida Citrus Code, sets up the Florida Citrus Commission and a per-box assessment on citrus that funds marketing and research.

The code's stated purposes include stabilizing and protecting the citrus industry and letting citrus producers collectively pay assessments to fund marketing and research programs; the Legislature calls the money collected a social contract between the state and citrus growers, to be held in trust (section 601.02, Florida Statutes). The history note for the commission section begins with a 1935 law, chapter 16854 (section 601.04).

The Florida Citrus Commission has 11 members appointed by the Governor: seven grower members, three processor members and one packer member who must live in the Indian River production area (section 601.04, Florida Statutes). One grower member must come from each citrus district, one must grow citrus on more than 5,001 acres, and members serve 3-year terms. Each must be a Florida resident who has been actively engaged in growing, growing and shipping, or growing and processing citrus fruit in the state for at least 5 years immediately before appointment.

The assessment applies to each standard-packed box of Florida citrus placed into the primary channel of trade, and the statute lets the rates be set lower in any year (section 601.15). Citrus also sits among the state symbols: the orange blossom is the state flower and orange juice is the state beverage (Florida Department of State).

NASS tonnage tables show California producing more citrus than Florida from the 2016-2017 season on, after Florida led in every season from 2005-2006 through 2015-2016.

In 2005-2006 Florida had 576,400 bearing acres and produced 7,823,000 tons, while California had 250,500 acres and 3,460,000 tons (Florida Citrus Statistics, citrus by state). The two states were almost level in 2015-2016, at 4,221,000 tons for Florida and 4,200,000 for California. In 2016-2017 California produced 3,880,000 tons to Florida's 3,505,000.

By 2024-2025 Florida was down to 188,400 bearing acres and 653,000 tons, while California held 266,300 acres and 4,208,000 tons (Florida Citrus Statistics). The report's season highlights say California accounted for 84 percent of United States citrus production in 2024-2025, Florida for 13 percent, and Texas and Arizona for the remaining 3 percent. Bearing citrus acreage in Florida, at 188,400 acres, was 61,400 acres below the 2023-2024 season.

Florida produced 15,660,000 boxes of all citrus in the 2025-2026 season, up 7 percent from 14,650,000 the season before, in the August 27, 2026 USDA Citrus Summary.

All orange production rose 5 percent to 12,950,000 boxes, made up of 4,770,000 boxes of non-Valencia oranges and 8,180,000 boxes of Valencia oranges (NASS Citrus Summary, August 2026). Grapefruit totaled 1,350,000 boxes, tangerines and tangelos 460,000 and lemons 900,000. Lemons are a new line in the series: the statistics report notes that Florida lemon estimates began with the 2024-2025 season (Florida Citrus Statistics).

The top five counties were Polk at 3.27 million boxes, Highlands at 3.07 million, DeSoto at 1.66 million, St. Lucie at 1.40 million and Hardee at 1.31 million, together 73 percent of the state total (NASS Citrus Summary). Oranges made up 88 percent of production. The preliminary on-tree price was $12.14 a box for all oranges and $12.75 for Valencias in 2025-2026, down from $13.21 and $14.01 in 2024-2025. Most of the orange crop went to processing: of 12,950,000 boxes of oranges, 11,587,000 were processed and 1,363,000 went to fresh use.

Juice yield is tracked too. The Florida Department of Citrus reported a final frozen concentrated orange juice yield of 1.14616 gallons per box of 42 degree Brix concentrate for 2024-2025, a decrease from the season before (Florida Citrus Statistics).

The first USDA forecast for 2026-2027, released October 9, 2026, puts Florida all orange production at 10.0 million boxes, down 23 percent from the 2025-2026 final.

The forecast splits that into 3.00 million boxes of non-Valencia oranges, down 37 percent, and 7.00 million boxes of Valencia oranges, down 14 percent (NASS October 2026 citrus forecast). Grapefruit is forecast at 1.30 million boxes, tangerines and tangelos at 450,000 and lemons at 950,000, the only Florida category forecast to grow, up 6 percent. The estimated number of bearing orange trees is 17.0 million, and non-Valencia bearing trees are down 24 percent from the previous season.

The forecast's averages leave out weather-affected seasons. NASS excludes four of the previous 10 seasons from its averages: 2017-2018 because of Hurricane Irma, 2022-2023 because of Hurricanes Ian and Nicole, 2024-2025 because of Hurricane Milton and 2025-2026 because of a freeze (NASS forecast). The next Florida forecasts are scheduled for January 12, April 9 and July 9, 2027. Florida's place in the wider farm economy is covered in the Florida agriculture overview in this topics section.