Commodities : Orange Juice Futures Slide

Orange juice futures were sharply lower on the Cotton Exchange in New York despite reports last week of citrus canker being found in a Florida tree nursery and the discovery of two male Mediterranean fruit flies.

Pamela Rockley, an orange juice analyst in New York with Pershing Futures, said abundant supplies being imported from Brazil and the current harvest of Valencia oranges in Florida combined to keep pressure on the market.

Near Miami, authorities were preparing to spray a pesticide and subsequently release about 240 million sterile Medflies to eradicate the Medfly threat.

Citrus canker, a disease that damages trees, was discovered last week in a nursery near Tampa, Fla., and 840,000 trees were to be destroyed.

More than 7 million trees in nurseries were destroyed last fall when citrus canker was discovered.

That discovery led to a major rally in orange juice prices. But they’ve been retreating ever since, with the exception of a period in January after a major freeze in Florida, the nation’s leading producer of citrus.