More than 40,000 people are expected to show up for Dade City’s annual Kumquat Festival, however, farmers say it wasn’t a very good year.

Frank Gude has been farming kumquats since the 70’s.

“We harvest our own and we harvest from all the other growers,” said Frank Gude, owner of Kumquat Growers.

He says 90 percent of the kumquats in the state come from him and 10 other local growers in St. Joes, but this year he’s guessing he’s down 25 percent.

“It has to do with the loss of trees and the loss of bearing surface on the trees,” Gude said.

The USDA hasn’t found a cause yet, but visually the problem is pretty obvious.

“That would be a normal tree, when you couldn’t even walk in here,” said Gude pointing to a sparing tree.

Most kumquat growers in the area use citrus to supplement their income, but those are dying.

“You can see through that tree which means that it’s got the first stage of greening,” said Gude.

Greening is when a bacteria affects the roots of a tree and it causes the roots to die.  

Gude says unless a cure is found, acres and acres of his citrus will die within a year.

That’s why Gude has increased the number of kumquat tree’s he farms. However with no solution in sight to why he’s now losing kumquat trees, he worries it may be years before his farm is back up to snuff.

The 18th annual Kumquat Festival is Saturday in Dade City.