The South Australian citrus industry could break records this season for navel and mandarin tonnage, following a strong rise in the amount of bearing trees.

In a release, Citrus Australia’s South Australia value chain coordinator Kym Thiel said the state's navel crop was expected to approach 100,000 metric tons (MT), with growers recovering from years of drought.

"This can be split into 55,000 tonnes of early and mid-season navels whilst the big explosion is in late season summer navels which should be up from just over 20,000 tonnes three years ago to close on 45,000 tonnes this season," Thiel said.

"A large percentage of summer navel trees were planted in 2005, ’06 and ‘07 which are now approaching full production.

"This tonnage is dependent on normal growing conditions between now and harvest, but at this early stage fruit size is on track to be average but down on last season."

Thiel added there was also a big variation in fruit sizes which meant more choices for consumers. Overall fruit size would be smaller because of hot and dry weather, but Citrus Australia's general manager for market development Andrew Harty did not expect this would cause marketing problems.

"In fact, young trees coming into full production and boosting production at the end of the navel season will create opportunities for exporters, as they don’t face the same international competition at the end of the season as they do early in the season," Harty said.

The state's mandarin crop will likely reach a record of 28,000MT, lemon crops should stand at around 5,000MT while the release said tangelo and grapefruit trees were also showing good numbers.

"Lighter numbers on the tree and early harvesting due to strong market conditions has led to a predicted smaller overall crop for lemons," Thiel said.

"Demand for grapefruit is being driven by the preferred red fleshed varieties whilst tangelos have come back strongly with heavier crops following a low crop last year and significant tree removals over the past three seasons."

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