Orange juice rebounded from its 2010 low after US officials raised hopes for Florida's citrus production, but not by as much as some investors had feared.

Florida's orange crop for 2009-10 will come in at 132m boxes (5.92m) tonnes, the US Department of Agriculture, adding 1m boxes (20,000 tonnes) to its previous estimate.

However, New York took the revision, which left production down 19% year on year, in its stride sending the benchmark May contract up 2.6% to 129.80 cents a pound by the close.

The lot had closed on Thursday at its weakest since the end of December, in expectations that the USDA would lift its estimate.

"It looks like a matter of 'sell on the rumour buy on the fact'," a London analyst told Agrimoney.com.

'Below average size' 

The USDA said its estimate change reflected better hopes for the Florida's crop of early and midseason varieties, for which harvesting has finished.

The department left its forecast for Valencia oranges unchanged, while flagging that "fruit size is measuring below average".

Orange output in Florida, America's biggest citrus-producing state, has been dented by disease, frosts, and the destruction of some plantations either to make way for row crops, which looked more profitable three years ago, or real estate development.