Orange Juice Museum

We went to Florida’s Natural orange museum.  We learned that 1000 orange groves with 50 000 acres of orange trees provide oranges and grapefruits for Florida’s Natural orange juice factory.

Here are millions of oranges waiting to be sorted and squished.

 

 

An orange seed is planted and it grows for a year this is called “root stock” this tree then goes to a nursery where a bud is grafted to it from another established tree or “parent tree”. The tree then grows for another year and it is ready to be transplanted into a grove.

Orange trees are full grown at 25 years and have up to 2000 pieces of fruit. Do you know that a grafted tree can start producing fruit at 3 years of age.  Can you believe that a citrus tree can bear fruit and live for 100 years or more.  The fruit must stay on the tree until it is ready to eat because once you pick an orange it does not ripen like an apple or a banana.

 

 

Here is a picture of Grace and me in front of a Valencia tree.  These trees are used most often for juicing.

 

This is a picture of an orange grove near my Grandpa's place.

 

 

This is a picture of an orange juicer that they use to squeeze all the juice out.

 

.  At the museum I got to sample many kinds of juice I have decided that Florida’s Natural is the best juice because it is only juice and no water is added.  The pulp and peels are even made into shampoo, perfumes, cooking oils, animal feed, and furniture varnish. The company has even won awards for being an environmental friendly company they reuse and filter water for washing and watering their groves.

 

Oranges that are in season

 

Nov.-Jan.                                             Jan.                                                        Feb.

Royal Navel Oranges                      Honey Bells (very sweet)             Temple oranges (tangy, tart)

Ruby Red Grapefruit                      Ruby Red Grapefruit                      Ruby Red Grapefruit

 

 

Mar                                                        Mar.-June

Honey Tangerine                             Valencia (sweetest of the season)

Ruby Red Grapefruit                     

 

That is my day learning about oranges.