Sweet!

Sugar Belle, a bold mandarin orange hybrid that ripens in time for the winter holiday market, will be the first University of Florida-created citrus variety intended for commercial production.

A mix of the sweet Clementine and the colorful, bell-shaped Minneola, the new sweet-tart fruit can be best described as “a mandarin with a tangy punch,” says Fred Gmitter, a plant breeder at the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. “Many old-timers in citrus have said this is the best-tasting citrus they’ve ever had,” he adds.

The fruit, which has a patent pending and is also known as LB8-9, has been in the works since 1985.

Mark McLellan, IFAS’ dean for research, said he believes the time that went into breeding this variety will be worthwhile. “Sugar Belle’s flavor characteristics are expected to make this variety a consumer favorite,” he says.

Florida Foundation Seed Producers Inc., a direct support organization of UF, has awarded an exclusive U.S. license for the Sugar Belle to the New Varieties Development and Management Corp. In return for delivering new culitvars to the public, the corporation will pay royalties back to the FFSP and the Floirda Agricultural Experiment Station, to be reinvested in breeding and development programs.

Peter Chaires, executive director at New Varieties, believes the Sugar Belle will make a big splash in the $52 million specialty citrus market. He describes its flavor almost like one would describe a fine wine: “It has a flavor that takes it to the top of the show wherever it goes. It’s got a very, very deep flavor.

“I don’t want to say it’s rich, but it’s a very deep, complex flavor.”

Despite strong ties to the citrus industry, UF has never before released a citrus cultivar developed solely by its scientists — likely because citrus breeding

is an excruciatingly slow endeavor.

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The average time for new citrus, from

creation to its commercial release, can be up to 20 years.

And in this case, what became the UF’s inaugural citrus variety could just as easily have been plowed under.

Mr. Gmitter, who arrived at UF’s Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred as an assistant professor in 1985, was a young plant breeder desperate for citrus trees to work with. After locating a small tract of trees left by a retired professor, MR. Gmitter went for a look.

“I went out in early November of my first year … This one tree had beautiful, bright orange fruit. The best citrus I’d ever eaten in my life,” he says. He used those trees to create his new cultivar.

UF officials hope Sugar Belle will be as lucky when it comes to reaching consumers — which could be as early as this year, in some markets.

The fruit matures early, so it should be a good fit for the December holiday market, Mr. Chaires says. It can be grown in a manner to produce lowseeded fruit. And with his organization keeping tabs on how the fruit fares in groves and the economics of the citrus market, he believes the new fruit has the potential to be a big hit.

“Every time we’ve tested it with different groups, it’s been wildly popular,” he says. 