Tag Archives: GA Citrus Association

Georgia’s Citrus Industry is Flourishing Despite Challenges

Posted on by

Tifton, GA |

In Tifton recently, citrus growers gathered for their annual conference; a time of fellowship and education, as growers and experts work to lay the groundwork that will help keep the industry a thriving one in the state for years to come.

“It’s our 7th conference, and we have speakers from California, Florida, of course, Georgia coming to talk about the future of the citrus industry in Georgia. Previously, during our conferences, we’ve talked about growing the industry and we’ve kind of surpassed that mark. We know we’re growing and we continue to grow. So, now we’re just looking to the future about what we can do about diseases and the prevention of the spread of diseases and pests and so forth. So, we’re kind of laying the groundwork for what we need to do next,” says Lindy Savelle, President of the Georgia Citrus Association.

In the last several years, the state’s citrus industry has seen a huge interest and growth. Today, Savelle says growth has slowed a bit, but says the industry is continuing to flourish with new varieties starting to be grown.

“Georgia, primarily when we first began this industry in 2013, 14, 15, was primarily Satsumas, and what we realized is that we were saturating with a two-month window of citrus in Georgia, and we needed to flatten that curve out and plant something that comes in earlier or something that would come in later. That’s what we’re seeing. We’re seeing now that there’s about 65, 67 percent satsumas in Georgia, which is good. We’re seeing growth in plantings of tangos, chirinui, grapefruit, and other mandarins as well. So that’s where we’re headed,” says Savelle.

However, with that growth, comes concern, as the threat of disease still looms, such as citrus greening, a disease that has devasted Florida’s citrus industry and is a disease producers in Georgia are desperate to prevent.

“HLB is a billion dollar problem to have. As you’ve seen in Florida, the citrus industry, their production has gone down almost eighty percent. So HLB, it takes a couple of years but it can completely kill the tree as it is a bacterial disease, it clogs up all the plant conduit where the nutrients flow from one part to other so it can really kill the entire tree. Your fruit quality will be deteriorated and the overall plant health will be deteriorated. So, eventually the plant would die in a couple of years. So, it is really serious and as I said, it is transmitted by insects. So, once you have one plant in the grove, if you do not manage the psyllids and also do not uproot that tree, it can eventually take out the entire grove. However many acres you have,” says Apurba Barman, an Entomology Professor at UGA.

By: John Holcomb

Citrus Conference Educates Georgia Growers

Posted on by
Reply

TIFTON, GA – To promote and educate people about Georgia citrus… that’s part of the Georgia Citrus Association’s mission statement, and that’s what they did recently at their second annual meeting in Tifton.  Around 300 people came to learn about this rapidly growing industry.

“It is exploding, we doubled last year in 2017, we doubled the number of trees in the state from 21000 to 42000,” says Lindy Savelle, President of the Georgia Citrus Association. “In 2018, people are starting to plant in March, we could potentially double again. It’s incredible.”

Those at the conference got the chance to meet with vendors, network with one another, and attend breakout sessions, each educating those there on various topics, something that Lindy Savelle says is most important.

“The experts in Florida will tell you to take it slow and easy, to learn about how to grow healthy citrus and to protect the golden egg opportunity that you have in Georgia. We’re sitting here, our state’s not rampant with disease, and so, what we’ve got to do is make sure that we protect the opportunity and not kill it before we get it off the ground,” says Savelle.

One of the big topics was on pests and diseases. The main one, of course, being HLB, or citrus greening, which is causing major problems in Florida and could be an issue here in Georgia.

Jamie Burrow, Extension Program Manager with the University of Florida says, “the challenges with citrus greening is that it only takes one psyllid to have a tree become infected by HLB, and with HLB, the bacteria can be in the tree before you see the symptoms.”

Of course, after hearing about pests and diseases, they also got the chance to hear about what’s being done to combat them. One big way they’re spread is through human assistance, and the Department of Ag is working to solve that problem.

Mike Evans, Program Manager for the Georgia Department of Agriculture says, “the number one way that plant pests, insects, diseases have been moved in the past is through human movement. We take a plant from one place, and then we take the plant to another place.”

One method the Georgia Department of Agriculture, as well as the USDA is using to stop spreading is regulations. It may sound daunting, but they are trying to protect the huge investments at risk.

“We don’t know how big citrus is going to get, but there’s a possibility, like you said, that these folks are going to be investing lot of money and this is something we want to work with the folks on,” says Evans.

Growers also got to learn about ways to sell their new crop. Matthew Kulinski from the Georgia Grown marketing team spoke in a breakout session on what the Georgia Grown program is doing to help market Georgia citrus.

“The goal of the Georgia Department of Agriculture’s marketing division is to help farmers sell their products. That’s our main challenge and our main goal and all of our plans are centered around that mission. We are working with citrus farmers right now to be able to identify the right market for them,” says Kulinski.

He aslo explained how there are some marketing challenges they are going to face with this being a new crop from Georgia.

“One of the first challenges we’re going to have is not many people are aware of Georgia citrus, and what Georgia has to offer,” says Kulinski. “So, a lot of education will come into play in being able to educate both the retailers as well as consumers about what to expect from Georgia citrus and what Georgia citrus is available.”

By: John Holcomb