Tag Archives: Georgia Citrus

Georgia’s Citrus Industry is Flourishing Despite Challenges

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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

Thomas County Citrus Tree Nursery Growing Certified Trees, Georgia Citrus Industry

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Ochlocknee, GA

Two years ago, this greenhouse full of young citrus trees was just a dream for Lindy Savelle, Owner of Georgia Grown Citrus here in Thomas County. However, as you can see, that dream has now flourished into a reality; one in which Savelle grows a variety of different citrus trees designed to be more vigorous and suitable in colder climates.

“To be successful in Georgia, you really need to have a tree on a cold hardy rootstock,” says Savelle. “If you buy it from someplace else, it may not even be on a rootstock. It might just be grown from a clipping or it might be on a rootstock that is an aggressive grower and less cold hardy. So that’s the first thing. You want to have a rootstock that’s cold hardy in nature and then it has to come from a certified rootstock seed. Then, the next thing is our trees are budded, very similar to grafting, but it’s a bud being placed on the rootstock, and that needs to come from a certified mother tree, or a scion tree.”

Not only are Savelle’s seeds and root stocks USDA certified, so is her greenhouse, which means all of their trees are kept in a disease-free environment and are tested before they are allowed to sell them.

“We have people in neighboring states; Alabama, Mississippi, that drive all the way here to purchase trees, but also, we ship trees throughout the US. We’ve shipped to Maine, to Washington and down,” says Savelle. “So, in order to ship outside the state, you have to be USDA certified, but what that actually means to the consumer is that the trees are tested twice a year and the facility itself is inspected once a month. Which, if you’re looking for a citrus tree, you want it to be one that’s grown in an environment that is close to being disease-free as, as you can get it and that’s what we’re striving for, is disease free trees.”

According to Savelle, the importance of greenhouse nurseries like this one with disease tested and free trees can’t be overstated, as citrus is very susceptible to disease and an outbreak could be detrimental to the state’s citrus Industry.

“Florida, our sister state, has lost eighty percent of its production due to disease, primarily citrus greening, which is a devastating disease. It oftentimes takes about five years for that disease to surface where you know something’s wrong with that tree,” says Savelle. “We have a commercial industry now in Georgia of citrus, and we’ve got half a million trees in the ground and a hundred and fifty plus growers who are planting this for a commercial production. So, it’s so important that we protect their investment, our investment. We also have a commercial growth as well. So, you’ve put out a lot of money, you want to protect it from disease. Citrus is one of the highest disease potential commodities that there is.”

By: John Holcomb

Atkinson County Citrus Operation Thriving

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Axson, GA

Just a few years ago, this grove that you see here, Gillis Grove was nothing but a dream in its earliest stages of reality, however, today, as you can certainly tell, it’s a beautiful, fully grown and fully operational satsuma grove full of fresh, juicy fruit ready to be harvested – an endeavor the Gillis family set out to do in 2018 when they saw an opportunity and ceased it.

“My wife and I discussed growing citrus. We saw a couple of farms coming up in Georgia and we thought it was very interesting, new,” says owner, Logan Gillis. “So, we decided we’d put in these fifteen acres and diversify, and felt like there was a need for fresh citrus on the east coast. Such a sad story what’s going on in Florida, and there’s honestly, a little bit of an opportunity here in Georgia and with our climate; I know it’s not something people think about in the state of Georgia, as far as growing citrus, but citrus varieties have come a long way with being able to withstand the cooler weather, so we felt like it was an opportunity and we jumped right on it.”

As you can certainly tell by the trees loaded down with fresh fruit, they seem to be doing well, which according to Gillis, can be attributed to their South Georgia climate, which is great for the trees and allows them to produce a great crop.

“In the Fall, as we have a gradual, cooling of temperatures, it helps our trees go into dormancy faster,” says Gillis. “In other regions, they never go dormant; they’re vibrant all year. That’s not necessarily the case with us. We may not have quite as vigorous of a citrus tree, but that tree going into dormancy helps us as far as our tree being able to take the cold weather. Another thing the cold weather does is it increases our sugars and helps our fruit tree ripen. So, when we’re picking satsumas, everything is ready to go to the store when it comes off the tree, so it’s as good as it’s going to get – we’re not leaving it there hanging.”

After seeing such great success in the past few years, Gillis says they’re working on expanding their grove by adding acres and new varieties of citrus to the farm.

“The future is very bright. I mean we are in a fantastic region to grow citrus. We’re not limited on water supply, we’ve got good rich soils, we produce a fabulous piece of fruit, so I’m definitely investing more into the farm. I see it as a great way to diversify and really provide a quality product to our public. I’m very excited about it. In the spring, we’re planting grapefruit, tangoes, kishues, and a mandarin called a shiranui,” says Gillis.

By: John Holcomb

Cold Winter Blast Impacts Georgia Citrus

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Ochlocknee, GA

Here in this citrus grove in Southwest Georgia, a battle took place – a battle for survival as the Christmas week arctic blast brought frigid wind and temperatures to the area colder than any they’ve seen in years, which meant growers, like Lindy Savelle, who owns and operates Georgia Grown Citrus, had to spring into action – working day in and day out to freeze protect their trees if she wanted them to survive.

“We freeze protect our trees using a Microjet that puts out fourteen gallons per hour per tree, and it’s the making of ice that creates biothermal units that keeps, keeps the temperature of the bud union of the tree from freezing. It’s so counterintuitive, but it works. And so, it was uh, quite incredible. We ran the system day after day without turning it off, but here on our farm, we turn it on at thirty-six and we don’t turn it off until it gets up to thirty-six, sometimes thirty-eight, depending on the chill factor. But it is huge to freeze protect these trees, um, I don’t know how you would really survive without doing something to protect them,” says Savelle.

For the most part, Savelle believes they faired pretty well, as they only lost a little bit of fruit on the trees left from harvest and had a few broken limbs, but much of the foliage looks as though it’s been burned, which Savelle says will have to be cut back and will most likely effect next year’s production.

According to Savelle, “When it’s frozen and it starts to thaw out, things start to happen. So, it takes time to reveal that. But say we had to cut back the whole, all of the foliage that’s on this tree or cut back the limbs because of burn back, that will affect production next year because you’re cutting off the production part of the tree. So, it could affect us that way. I don’t think for our Satsumas, we’re going to see a lot of production drop. But some of these other varieties, like the grapefruit, the Tangos, those sorts of things, and certainly any tree that was still putting on new growth; all of that’d be burned and have to be cut off. And that’s where you lose your production is anytime you have to cut limbs off, you’re going to lose volume.”

For now, though, Savelle believes that it’s just a waiting game, as they won’t know the full impact for a few weeks and still have two whole months of Winter weather ahead of them.

“Recovery’s just going to be looking and watching for the next few weeks. We won’t start cutting on these trees or trimming back anything. There’s really not much we can do until the Spring because who knows what January and February will hold for us. Because anytime you do anything to the tree, it’s waking it up. It’s not allowing it to stay dormant. And that’s what you want, you want it to stay dormant. And it’s likely that we’ll have another event, hopefully not this brutal, but it’s always a possibility in Georgia, we’re going to have a freeze event. So we just, you’re in the watch mode for the next two months really, uh, just to see what kind of damage you might have had and um, just kind of the wait and see,” says Savelle.

Citrus Conference Educates Georgia Growers

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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