Buzz kill for California mandarin growers

Guest blogger Lance Jungmeyer piping in ...

As spring comes along, bees are making headlines, mostly with growers complaining of possible low yields because of decimated hives.

Here's a new twist: California "seedless" mandarin growers say they have nailed down the reason for their seedy fruit in recent years. Too many busy bees. Too much pollination. See the article here.

The article references California Citrus Mutual's Joel Nelson.

"Joel Nelson, president of California Citrus Mutual, an Exeter-based growers cooperative, said that an acre of healthy, seedless Mandarins can generate $10,000 to $12,000 in revenues. But if the fruit has seeds, that revenues can drop to about $3,000.

Nelson estimated that the most recent crop of Mandarins grown in Tulare, Fresno, Kern and Madera counties could have been worth $55 million if nearly 40 percent of it hadn't been lost to the January freeze, so a significant amount of seed development could cost the industry millions of dollars."

Mandarin growers - somehow, someway - want to keep the bees away from their groves, which unlike other oranges are self-pollinating. They say their groves are concentrated, but you have to wonder whether an absence of bees would cause any other fruit or nut crops to be without pollination.

And given the attention to the dearth of bees this year, it would be an odd thing for growers to succeed in their battle against bees.

On a side note, the source of the seeds may be the proximity of valencia oranges, known for their woody pulp and abundance of seeds. Here's an idea: get rid of the valencias. Consumers don't care much for them and one could argue that eating a dry, woody valencia might keep consumers away from oranges for months at a time. Better to rid the marketplace of poor-performing items, and at the same time improve the marketability of mandarins.