Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Please log in, or sign up for a new account to continue reading.
Thank you for reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.
Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Your current subscription does not provide access to this content.
Sorry, no promotional deals were found matching that code.
Promotional Rates were found for your code.
Scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Cloudy skies after midnight. Heavy and torrential downpours at times. Low 72F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%..
Scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Cloudy skies after midnight. Heavy and torrential downpours at times. Low 72F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.
Saw palmetto berries, which ripen between August and November, are a commercially-exploited plant in Florida that requires a permit to harvest them.
Native to Florida, saw palmettos are slow-growing, clumping, multi-trunked palms that grow 5 to 10 feet tall, and 4 to 10 feet wide as far north as South Carolina and as far west as Texas.
University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services
Saw palmetto berries, which ripen between August and November, are a commercially-exploited plant in Florida that requires a permit to harvest them.
Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services
Serenoa repens fruit — also known as saw palmetto berries.
These olive-shaped morsels are sought after by consumers as herbal remedies, and prized by pickers because of their worth.
Palmetto berry popularity even drives some harvesters to pursue illegal means.
“We have received a lot of complaints from citizens over the years of trespassing, usually during this time of year between August and November, when the berries are ripe and ready for picking,” said Aidan Marshall, east operations lieutenant for the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office.
Native to Florida, saw palmettos are slow-growing, clumping, multi-trunked palms that grow 5-to-10 feet tall, and 4-to-10 feet wide as far north as South Carolina and as far west as Texas, according to the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, or UF/IFAS.
University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
Their leaves are fan-shaped with small, saw-like teeth on their stems, and, in the spring, 3-foot-long stalks appear to showcase white, fragrant flowers before the berries develop.
A saw palmetto yields between 100 and 500 berries in mid-to-late June before its yield declines until the middle of October.
Palmetto berries start out as green, oblong pods before they ripen by changing shape and color between August and November, indicating they’re ready to be picked and sold.
Native to Florida, saw palmettos are slow-growing, clumping, multi-trunked palms that grow 5 to 10 feet tall, and 4 to 10 feet wide as far north as South Carolina and as far west as Texas.
Operating for 8 years out of central Florida, the Saw Palmetto Market LLC, which specializes in harvesting and buying palmetto berries, travels Florida to follow the berry-picking season.
“They’ll start in South Florida, and as they become yellow, orange or black they become merchantable,” Saw Palmetto Market CEO Troy Rentz said, “and as the season progresses, they move farther north.”
For more on the Saw Palmetto Market, visit sawpalmettoberrie.com.
While an important food for wildlife, palmetto berries are said to provide natural health benefits for humans.
Palmetto berries are either ground up into pill form or their oils are extracted to be diffused to help treat enlarged prostates, urinary tract infections and hair loss, Rentz said, adding male and European clientele make up the much of the demand.
Rentz said the Saw Palmetto Market deals in around 500,000 pounds of berries a year.
“What really impacts the business is really the weather; too much rain during pollination will decrease the yields,” said Rentz, who’s been a part of the palmetto berry industry for about 10 years. “With any farming, you’re really depending on Mother Nature.”
A commodity, palmetto berries have a market price that fluctuates on a daily basis, “but a good, back-of-the-napkin number is anywhere from a $1.50 to a $1.75 a pound,” Rentz said.
“For some people, it’s a way for them to make some extra money,” he said, “so a lot of harvesters that may go harvest tomatoes or watermelons, this is the time of year when they’re not harvesting oranges or other crops so they can be used to harvest palmetto berries.”
Palmetto berry season, is also when law enforcement starts seeing an uptick in calls.
“Individuals are usually seen trespassing on vacant land, picking these berries,” Marshall said.
Calls for palmetto-berry-related offenses have decreased since July 2018, Marshall said, when Florida declared saw palmetto berries a commercially-exploited plant.
This required berry harvesters to obtain permits, and berry transactions to include bills of lading — a detailed receipt documenting the seller and buyer, along with the product’s description, origin and destination.
Along with making an arrest for trespassing, law enforcement can now jail someone for harvesting palmetto berries without a permit.
“Prior to that, anybody could harvest — they were trespassing on private land; however, they didn’t need a permit,” Marshall said. “Anybody and everybody could leave their house, pick berries and sell them on the side of the road. I remember trucks parking in Homosassa that were just purchasing them off the street.”
Applying for a permit with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) to harvest palmetto berries is free, and can be done online at tinyurl.com/yu7k9bt6.
For questions about saw palmetto berry harvesting, and how to submit a paper application for a permit, contact the FDACS at either 1-888-397-1517 or DPISPB@FDACS.gov.
Harvesters have to carry their palmetto berry permits with them while they’re picking on properties they’re permitted to be on. A permit isn’t needed to harvest berries from one’s own property, unless they plan to sell their picked berries.
It’s prohibited to harvest from federal, state or any other public lands unless the governing authority gives the OK.
“There are not any public entities that are issuing people the ability to harvest,” Marshall said. “For the most part, you’re going to find people on private property harvesting these berries.”
Through informational seminars in partnership with UF/IFAS, the Saw Palmetto Market tries to educate harvesters about the dos and don’ts of palmetto berries.
“We’re about promoting ethical harvesting for a sustainable future,” Rentz said, “so that means it’s imperative that people obtain a permit from the state, which is free.”
Since 2019, the sheriff’s office has made 11 arrests for unpermitted harvests.
“The arrests are not physical arrests but usually notices to appear (in court),” Marshall said, “A lot of times we’ll trespass them from the property if we we’re able to contact the property owner, and we usually do not make physical arrests on trespassers unless they’ve been warned as a trespasser previously.”
Sheriff’s office deputies took two Citrus County residents into custody Aug. 23 on a misdemeanor charge of willfully destroying or harvesting regulated plants without either a permit or permission from landowner.
Homeowner associations in Citrus County, especially for the greenbelt-laden subdivisions of Pine Ridge and Sugarmill Woods, can encourage their residents to contact authorities if they suspect illegal berry picking.
Private property owners can also fence in and post their lands with no trespassing signs to make it easier for law enforcement to make a trespassing arrest.
“Anything fenced or posted gives us a little bit more ability to make a physical arrest for trespassing because you can clearly see it’s fenced and posted,” Marshall said. “There are physical obstructions they have to climb over to go on the land.”
Contact Chronicle reporter Buster Thompson at 352-564-2916, bthompson@chronicleonline.com or visit tinyurl.com/yxn2ahso to see more of his stories.
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.