Specialty fruits, primarily tangerines and tangelos, are expected to fill 600,000 boxes during the 2022-2023 season, down 150,000 from the 2021-2022 season.
The overall citrus total under the new forecast would represent the smallest crop since 18.108 million boxes were filled in the 1929-1930 season, which was highlighted by a Mediterranean fruit fly invasion as growers were recovering from severe hurricanes in 1926 and 1928. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, before the detection of citrus greening, overall production annually topped 200 million boxes.