Texas Citrus – How sweet it is!

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Texas Citrus – How sweet it is!

Valley tangerines ready to be picked
Valley tangerines ready to be picked

When it comes to Texas citrus, the Rio Grande Valley has no competitors. While consumption of Valley red grapefruit is growing nationally, sales of Florida and California grapefruit are decreasing. This season, Valley packing houses expect to ship between nine and ten million cartons of citrus, primarily grapefruit. Marketed under the names Ruby Red, Rio Star and Rio Red, Texas grapefruit attracts consumers because of its color, but the naturally sweet taste gets them to come back for more.

Undeniably, major events have shaken the Valley citrus industry this year. Two of the four largest citrus packing houses were acquired by a California concern, giving them access to at least 60% of the region’s production. And the deadly Asian psyllid bug, which transmits the “citrus greening” bacterial diseae that kills citrus trees, was found in residential trees in Mission and San Juan, prompting a quarantine on citrus tree sales there. Advanced citrus greening in Florida means fewer citrus trees there are producing healthy fruit. Nevertheless, local citrus businesses expect to be savoring the fruits of their labor … once they wrap up the season’s breakneck pace of harvesting, packing and shipping sometime next spring.

Polished, prime quality grapefruits roll into packing bins
Polished, prime quality grapefruits roll into packing bins

Home grown

“There’s a reason why large corporate entities are investing in Texas citrus. We have the best grapefruit in the world,” said Trent Bishop, vice president of sales for Lone Star Citrus Growers.

Formed in 2007 by industry veterans Jud Flowers, TJ Flowers and Bishop, Lone Star has become the largest locally owned citrus packing company in the region. The trio opened their own Mission facility to give the citrus buying public another reliable, credible option, according to Bishop. Fully vertically integrated, Lone Star plants and grows citrus, as well as picking, packing and shipping oranges and grapefruit. It has partnered with numerous independent growers and provides grove care.

“Over the last seven years we have grown our market share,” Bishop acknowledged. Part of Lone Star’s success comes from a different marketing approach. Instead of telling customers to choose from a menu of products, Lone Star asks them how they want their fruit packaged. “We’re very customer centric. We pack to each customer’s specifications and ship within 24 hours,” he explained. “We know what we do well: taking care of our customers.”

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Dale Murden, director of Rio Farms, said the private research station’s orchard has about 400 different types of citrus trees, making it among the world’s largest collections. Rio Farm researchers discovered that sour orange rootstock is ideal for Valley citrus.

“The outlook this season is good. We had good rains in late August through September. The timing couldn’t have been better for the crop,” Bishop added.

The Valley has approximately 27,000 acres of commercial citrus, planted with 120 to 127 trees per acre. John Dagraca, director of the Texas A&M University-Kingsville Citrus Center in Weslaco, said juicy, thin-skinned grapefruit makes up 70% of the crop. While in the 1940s, the Valley shipped 10,000 railcars of citrus a year (almost half the grapefruit eaten in the U.S.), today’s acreage is less than half of what it was then. Valley citrus is more vulnerable to freezes because the groves are close geographically. They also require more irrigation, and orchards are smaller.

But even a generation ago, half of the Valley’s citrus acreage had absentee owners, Dagraca pointed out. Consolidation of packing houses has been the norm since 1980. The Tex Sun name was bought by a Florida company.

Bell's Farm to Market packs gift baskets of citrus for local orders. Customers shipping gift fruit can order online.
Bell’s Farm to Market packs gift baskets of citrus for local orders. Customers shipping gift fruit can order online.

Changes

Many years ago, HEB had a canning and citrus juice plant in Harlingen, recalled Merlyn Koch. He first worked in citrus in 1948, became grove manager for Crockett Groves, and witnessed the ups and downs of the local citrus industry from five killer freezes to over-production in Florida. Most citrus growers stayed in the game after the early freezes, but the 1983 and 1989 freezes changed the industry dramatically, Koch recalled “Before those freezes, we used to deal with 10 to 15 cash buyers. Early in the season, you’d make a deal and shake hands on it. You’d know what you’d get.”

After 1983, Koch said the sheds went to contracts. “They’d pick your fruit, pack it, sell it and ship it, and you’d get what’s left. In other words, you didn’t know if they were going to give you money for your fruit or if they were going to bill you for packing it.” Some growers did go bankrupt when, instead of getting a check for their fruit, they got a bill from the shed for packing and shipping the fruit.

Retired now, Koch, 83, tends his nine-acre orchard planted in Ruby Reds. He peddles his grapefruit to fruit stands and directly to consumers. “I know what I’m getting for it as I sell it.” In his opinion, citrus growers are being squeezed.

Plump Texas grapefruit fill a gift fruit box being shipped out of state
Plump Texas grapefruit fill a gift fruit box being shipped out of state

Direct to consumer

A tiny but significant volume of the Valley’s citrus is marketed as gift fruit. Started in 1926, Pittman & Davis, for example, has concentrated on gift fruit since the 1933 hurricane blew away their packing shed. A few years ago, at age 85, Ned Davis sold the nationally known business his father started to a Florida conglomerate. Davis said only a handful of large gift fruit shippers remain, and even the once-active gift fruit shippers association has disbanded. “I bet there used to be a gift shipper in every Valley town.”

Gift fruit shipper Bobby Bell is among those still around, tapping into local and distant markets through Bell’s Farm to Market and Bell’s Farms. “We grow world-class grapefruit. We really enjoy sending fruit to Florida,” he said at his Ware Road store, which re-opened in mid-November.

Customers can watch the small in-house fruit processing line clean, size and polish fruit. They can order gift baskets with fruits and nuts to be delivered locally or order from the online catalog. Directly south of the store, Bell grows corn, tomatoes, okra and lulu avocadoes for the store.

“We’ve had a nice run,” said Bell. He’s expanded by buying mailing lists of smaller gift fruit companies whose owners were getting out of the business.

Donnatex 9x9 date stamped 1944Edinburg Citrus Association, which was formed in1932 and is the last citrus co-op in Texas, packs and ships cartons of fruit and also operates a large juice plant. Typically scarred and small fruit are juiced, but it is the least lucrative market for growers. The co-op has about 100 grower-members who have groves totaling around 4,000 acres, according to Dale Murden, past president of the co-op.

Commercial citrus has been a part of the Valley’s economy since John Shary first promoted the business approximately 100 years ago. Today his Mission estate has been transformed into Shary Mansion, an event center used for parties and wedding receptions that is a reminder of citrus’ heyday. Through the years, pressures of urbanization and citrus economics have shrunk the Valley’s citrus crop. Abandoned orchards have become subdivisions and parking lots.

Yet demand for Valley citrus is up and the acreage has stabilized. Despite the hard work involved, growers and shippers know how sweet it is to be in the Texas citrus industry. Orange you glad?

For more information, see lonestarcitrus.com, pittmandavis.com, bellsfarms.com, and call Shary Mansion at 581-1819.

December cover story by Eileen Mattei

Freelance writer Eileen Mattei was the editor of Valley Business Report for over 6 years. Her articles have appeared in Texas Highways, Texas Wildlife Association, Texas Parks & Wildlife and Texas Coop Power magazines as well as On Point: The Journal of Army History. The Harlingen resident is the author of five books: Valley Places, Valley Faces; At the Crossroads: Harlingen’s First 100 Years; and Leading the Way: McAllen’s First 100 Years, For the Good of My Patients: The History of Medicine in the Rio Grande Valley, and Quinta Mazatlán: A Visual Journey.

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