Donna Harrell, owner of Donna's No. 6 Produce on U.S. 49, deftly peeled away the bright orange skin of a genuine regional delicacy - the Louisiana satsuma. Harrell started getting calls weeks ago from customers around the country checking on the harvest of the sweet fruit similar to a tangerine but grown on just a few hundred acres along the Gulf Coast.

"People start planning their vacations around the harvest," she said. "If they are coming down, they don't want to come down until the satsumas come in." This year, satsuma devotees have reason to rejoice as growers and agriculture experts are reporting a bumper crop is coming just in time for the holidays.

But it's even better news for growers. Hurricane Katrina wiped out about half the satsuma trees in Plaquemines Parish, La., the tonguelike parish on the tip of southeast Louisiana where most of the Gulf Coast's satsuma crop originates.

Jimmy Boudreaux, a commercial vegetable specialist at the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center in Baton Rouge, said it has been a hard road back for satsuma growers. Katrina ripped up the small citrus trees and some acreage flooded with deadly salt water.

"They were just beat up so bad," he said. "Of course, the crop was beat up the storm year, and the next year the trees had to recover." Some growers devastated by the 2005 storm still have not gotten back into the business, he said.

"They lost everything, so the orchard is the last thing on their minds," he said. "They lost their homes, they lost everything." But for those satsuma farmers who managed to save a portion of their trees, this year is looking pretty good.

Immediately following the storm, growers rushed their surviving product to market, harvesting as much as possible from an early crop. That year, the Louisiana satsuma crop was valued at $2.6 million in farm income, down only slightly from the 2004's crop value of $2.7 million.

Last year's harvest, hampered by dying trees and fewer growers, brought just $1.6 million. "We think we could maybe do one and a half or two times that this year," Boudreaux said.

Even if this year's crop is wildly larger than expected, it's still small by any standard. By comparison, last year's Florida orange crop was valued at $1.5 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Through the entire state, Boudreaux said Louisiana only has 164 satsuma producers tending 316 acres of trees.

But satsuma crops outside of Louisiana are booming as well. Glenn Merritt of Merts Satsumas in Gulfport, one of a relative handful of Mississippi producers, said his trees are drooping with the fruit. "I'm overloaded with them right now," he said.

While a boutique crop, satsumas are prized for their flavor - sweet and mild without the tartness of other citrus. They also are easy to peel and mostly seedless. "They are the best fruit in the world," Boudreaux said. Merritt sells his satsumas mostly to produce stands in South Mississippi and to drive-up customers hunting for the sweet citrus. Hurricane Katrina blew over most of his young trees and he made a vain effort to prop them back up.

"Then a couple of weeks later (Hurricane) Rita came through and blew them all down again," he said. He estimates his orchard is about 80 percent recovered. Many of his older trees survived, which is a blessing since older trees are believed to deliver the sweetest fruit.

The boom satsuma growers are experiencing is relative. This year's crop will be small by pre-Katrina standards. Harrell said she locked in her supply by ordering from satsuma producers early in the year. Satsuma harvest starts in November and continues into the new year, but last year Harrell said she ran out shortly after Christmas. "I just unloaded 40 cases," she said. "My producer said there will be enough for me."

Source: hattiesburgamerican.com

Publication date: 11/27/2007

In the 1800s Lower Alabama (LA to us locals) was a major citrus producing area-- there is even a town just N of Mobile named Satsuma that had a large citrus grove.

The fact that satsumas are best when produced along the cold boundaries for citrus groves was one of the things I learned at the seminar in Fairhope. Auburn is definitly trying to get more producers to start growing satsumas again in LA-- and at $20,000/acre, I think they got a lot of people interested.

..........." and at $20,000/acre..........

I've been in farming long enough to know that $20,000/acre contains a lot of blue sky. In farming the optimum price for a crop, only comes around every now and then. In between, is hail, freezes, bugs, drought, drenching rain, labor problems, disease, hurricanes, cold weather, hot weather, and on and on. I notice that in Louisiana 164 growers farm 316 acres of satsumas. This only averages 1.9 acres per grower, a "farm" that small, the grower would have to be a farmer plus work in town.

You are right about the risk, but the biggest one to satsumas down here is a killing freeze-- which happens about every 20 years on average. That is where the freeze protection economics seminar comes in-- they calculate that for a one time cost of about $5,000/acre for the well and plumbing you could protect the trees from total loss although you would loose the crop for the next year.

That also covers irrigation which would be the next biggest risk. We don't have to worry about too much rain-- with this sandy soil it goes right thru.
Hurricanes are a big threat, but according to the experts over in Fairhope, satsumas stayed on the tree during hurricane Ivan (all other citrus fruits were knocked off-- Hamlin orange, Gft, lemons, mandarins).

Price and labor are big unknowns, but the area is a big agricultural area with a pretty good supply of farm labor.

$20,000/acre is based on a crop price of $0.50/# and that is gross not net, so you are also right about most of these farmers having another source of income, but it is enough to get many interested in planting a few acres to help out in a bad yr for cotton, beans, peanuts or potatoes or to help put the kid thru college for some of the working people on a small farm.

Skeeter,
Is the enthusiasm for Satsuma Production spilling over into the Pensacola/North Florida Area? It seems that many folks are planting dooryard citrus but I havent heard of too many Satsuma grove ventures in North Florida. Why is that? I would think weather conditions are practically identical to what they have in Fairhope Alabama. Thanks, Patrick

The climate is even slightly warmer because we are closer to the water, but that is also one of the reasons--development--everybody wants to be close to the water (or did before the hurricanes started hitting and insurance went to the sky). There are better areas east of here that are more agricultural--north of Panama City that would be better suited, but I don't think Florida Citrus wants to deal with cold protection when they can locate in warmer areas--eventhough satsumas need cold to attain their best flavor.

Auburn is the driving force behind the move in Alabama--they have done the demonstration plots and are providing the data and expertise. Florida has so many more varieties that they can grow in warmer areas-- but I think they are overlooking a way to extend citrus into the north end of the state.