Citrus Facts to Share at the Breakfast Table
From century-old trees to the glass on your breakfast table, Florida citrus has a story that’s far more fascinating than most people realize. These fun facts peel back the layers on oranges and grapefruits and show why the Sunshine State’s signature fruit is anything but ordinary. 🍊
- Orange trees are grown from seeds and mature at 25 years, they can produce fruit for 100 years.
- It takes six to nine months after blossoming for the three to bear fruit.
- Valencia oranges are unique in that their growing season is 18 months and the tree has two crops on it at the same time.
- Bees aren't needed for citrus pollination, but are brought to groves by beekeepers to make orange-blossom honey.
- One truckload of oranges produces 6,500 half-gallon cartons of orange juice – that's the fruit of 180 trees.
- A tangelo is a cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit.
- Grapefruit growers hope for harsher summers that stress trees and make the fruit more nutritious.
- Most orange are processed into juice within 24 hours of picking.
- There's no waste in orange-juice processing – spent orange and grapefruit peels and pulp are turned into pellets, which are fed to cattle.
- A cup of orange juice has 112 calories and 200 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C.
