Citrus industry takes root in southwest Georgia

By Tom Seegmueller

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    NEWTON, Georgia (Albany Herald) — When a property has been farmed and managed by the same family for almost a century and a half, it inevitably evolves with each generation that becomes its conservators. This is certainly the case of the property in Baker County that has been in the Jarvis family since the 1880s.

As the fourth generation to shape the property, Rhonda Jarvis Pate and her husband, Billy Pate, took a non-traditional path that will be carried forward by future generations. The couple enlisted their two daughters and their families in founding Southwest Georgia Citrus. Stephanie and Rhett Roberts, along with Julie and Sam Evans, are now part of the burgeoning citrus industry taking root in south Georgia and north Florida.

Citrus plants were introduced into North America as early as 1565 at St. Augustine, Fla. Over the centuries, large groves were established in central Florida. Over time, a relatively cold-tolerant variety of Satsuma oranges spread across the region. However, they were still susceptible to the periodic hard freezes that dipped into the region. Record freezes in the 1890s and in 1916 killed thousands of acres of trees. Recently, the Florida citrus industry has been ravaged by citrus greening, which has decimated citrus production in Asia, Africa and Central America as well.

Continued efforts were made to produce even more cold-tolerant varieties of the Satsuma, with some of the more recent effort being conducted by Wayne Hanna at the University of Georgia’s Tifton campus. In 2016 he released three varieties of seedless cold-tolerant oranges carrying the brand name “Frost.” These include Sweet Frost tangerines, Grand Frost lemons, and Pink Frost grapefruit, adding Southern Frost navel oranges this year.

The Pates have added Sweet Frost and Pink Frost to their groves, which have a variety of cold-tolerant citrus trees. This year was the first year that pickers were called in to work the harvest on their 4-year-old trees. As the picking crew began to fill their buckets, which in turn began to fill 500-pound bins, it was obvious that it was a moment that Billy was literally and figuratively savoring. Walking through the grove recently, he stopped to randomly taste and appraise the harvest.

Pate explained that he and other members of the Cold Hardy Citrus Association were hopeful that the cooler temperatures of south Georgia would not only produce sweeter fruit than that grown farther to the south but would also act as a natural deterrent to citrus greening.

The association has served to help growers face the challenges of working with this relatively new crop as well as address issues related to packing, marketing and pricing. They adopted the name “Sweet Valley Citrus” for the region.

Jason Golden, who is the owner and operator of Slate Harvesting, explained that the Pates’ crop would be delivered to the Satsuma Packing Company in Tifton. There, it would be sorted, graded, cleaned, and packaged on a state-of-the-art processing plant that can handle nearly a million pounds of citrus daily. At full operating capacity, citrus is run through the fully computerized 16-line operation. Each piece of citrus is weighed, graded and packaged in seconds. One of the differences in this regionally grown citrus is the quality ensured by this process.

Unlike much of the citrus found on grocery shelves, the southwest Georgia citrus is picked at its freshest and has naturally matured, unlike citrus shipped green from Central America and de-greened with gases before going to stores.

When it came to the decision to grow citrus on the property, Pate said, “I knew I wanted to do something when I retired. In the beginning I wanted to grow blueberries. But that was too much for one man and one tractor. I got interested in citrus when I went to a guy’s house 4 miles down the road and he had a big tree in the front yard loaded with fruit. He told me it was pink grapefruit. I decided if he can grow ‘em 4 miles from here, I can grow them here.”

Pate said growing citrus has involved a real learning process.

“You can be told what to do, but until you actually experience it, you don’t really understand,” he said.

The pickers rapidly remove the highest-grade fruit free of blemishes, sunspots and other defects with a skill that only comes with experience. While some varieties may be hand-picked, others must be clipped so that their delicate skin is not torn and so that no stem is left to puncture other fruit in the bins.

In an effort to establish customer satisfaction and confidence in the Southwest Georgia Citrus brand, only the highest quality fruit is marketed. The Pates’ first large-scale harvest totaled approximately 10,000 pounds.

Later this year, the grapefruits in the grove will be harvested. Although the majority of this year’s crop went to the packing plant in Tifton, some was held back for direct sales to Tommy Mc’s Produce in Albany. Anyone wanting more information can visit the Southwest Georgia Citrus Facebook page, which offers a glimpse of the sixth generation that will see the property into the future.

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