China has been a $75 million to $80 million market for California citrus, and growing, but in April 2013 Chinese officials closed access to the Chinese market for California citrus after a plant disease called phytophthora, commonly known as brown rot, was detected on several different loads of fruit.

Since then, the California industry and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been working with China in an effort to re-open the market, and California Citrus Mutual President Joel Nelsen was optimistic that those efforts may be about to pay off.

"I am feeling pretty good about it," he told The Produce News May 20, following an announcement that USDA's Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service has reached an agreement with its counterpart agency in China on an export protocol.

Nelsen said he was also optimistic last November when "we thought we had an agreement to reopen the market" just before the start of the California Navel season. But "problems developed" and it didn't happen. "As a result, the Navel orange industry lost the whole export season for the 2013-14 crop year."

But "to their credit, USDA continued to persevere and continued to challenge China on the obstacles that they were placing in our way," he said. In April, APHIS officials traveled to China and reached a "tentative agreement" with Chinese officials "on what the industry is obligated to do."

In June, a Chinese delegation will visit California to review the California citrus industry's field and packinghouse operations and how enforcement and documentation will be carried out, "and thus assure themselves" that the protocols in the agreement will actually be carried out.

Pursuant to that visit, "the goal is for them to announce in early July that the market will be reopened in time for some summer exports of Valencia oranges and lemons" and well in advance of the Navel export season, which typically starts in December, Nelsen said.

The Chinese delegation will be visiting production areas in Ventura County and in the San Joaquin Valley. "We will take them to packinghouses. We will take them to groves. We will let them visit with the county commissioners, because that is a system unique to California that affords better enforcement of these trade protocols," he said.

Before the market closed a year ago, China was the third-largest export market for California citrus, following South Korea and Japan. Navels are the state's leading citrus export item to China, followed by lemons and "to some degree" Valencias, he said.

In compliance with the agreed protocol, California citrus growers will be skirting, or trimming, the trees higher above the ground than has been standard practice.

"We do that as a normal practice because of other pest issues," Nelson said. "But they want them skirted a little higher for export, so we are going to do that. We are also going to be managing a spray program," using a benign copper spray that "provides a good shield against the [phytophthera] bacteria manifesting themselves onto the fruit."

The spray schedule will be based upon climatic conditions.

The industry will continue to handle fruit at the packinghouses using "our traditional post-harvest materials," he said.

China has not previously recognized the efficacy of those materials, but has now agreed to do so.

Finally, "we've got to inspect the fruit, both in the field and at the packinghouse, to a greater degree than what we are doing," he said. "All of that is manageable, and we are more than happy to do it to satisfy the concerns from China."