After putting a potted blooming Zutano and Bacon next to the inground Hass avocado at my friend's house, he got 29 big hass avocadoes (about 50% bigger than those from the groceries) this year. He gave me 9 of the fruits.

I think I am going to start renting out my type B avocadoes to the uninformed growers of Type A avocadoes and charge them 1/3 of their crop at harvest time. Better than zero harvest!

Avocado blooms for hire?

JoeReal Good to see another Avocado lover posting

Hey drichard, where in the world are you? We are in the marginal zone for avocadoes where the only avocadoes that can survive are in the family of Mexicola grande. Hass would die out in freaky cold one in 10 years weather.

Hey JoeReal, how long have you been growing Avocados?

We are in the marginal zone for avocadoes where the only
avocadoes that can survive are in the family of Mexicola
grande.

Without forcing you to backtrack some let me say that
Mexicola Grande was a seedling selection from Mexicola.
I've seen others elsewhere in other forums mention Mexicola
Grande and I've wondered where they got the idea that a
Fuerte is related other than Fuerte is supposedly a hybrid
that came in from Mexico but only about a year later after
the Mexicola. I've had Fuerte for several years along with
Mexicola.

I am assuming you are growing your Avocados in containers,
have you tried Jim up there near Sacramento for a Summer
ripener, if so, what do you think of it? Are you growing
standards or growing grafted plants on dwarfing rootstock?
I've only grown standards.

We are about a 2 1/2 hour drive South of you on 99. I agree
there is no way a Hass can make it here out in the ground
without some major protection. The trunks can handle
colder than described temperatures and live but it sure does
take a long while to get new growth to come back on them
here. If we get another real cold snap the following year it
is sayonara as I learned the hard way. Bacon here is almost
as tender but not quite as bad as Hass. Zutano can make it
here if we do not get cold again for as long as we were like
we had in 1990 and 1991. It is not so much how cold it gets
as mine in the ground survived down to 6 degrees in 1990
but the trees cannot handle a week of less than 24 degree
temps like we had which caused the original experiment to
end in failure. Since then the Fuerte and Mexicola I brought
in two years later and tried my hand again have done well
and now should able to have a better chance of enduring
such cold like we had back then. Even my Macadamias
survived the cold of 1990 but I did not get any growth on
them until July! Then when the next years cold hit that
party was over but at least I had them long enough to get
some nuts from them but two years later they were dusted.

Snickles

just a few novice avocado questions..

I have 3 avocado seedlings. planted around same time as citrus seedlings.. I have read several places that house plant avocados from seeds will never bear fruit.. but then again I'm remembering that I have read a number of places that citrus planted from seed never fruit.. So I am left wondering if it is same misinformed information? I have also read that in ground avocados bloom and fruit as soon as 4 yrs. would it be possible to get an avocado to bloom and fruit, provided I have both male and female plants growing? would keeping an avocado tree under 6' tall prevent it from blooming? @ $1 each avocado it would be well worth it to have a fruiting tree. If it turns out that I have both male and female trees (could I be that lucky? ) I have read that male could be grafted on to female (or was that the other way around?) to conserve space.
I'm just wondering if I should conserve my indoor tree space for my citrus trees (I'm developing a list of other trees I would like to add to my collection) and ditch the hope of ever having home grown avocados in zone 6?
Thanks for any sage advice!!
Gina *BabyBlue*

Avocados do not come in "male" and "female" types; rather, they are type "A" which is functionally female in the morning and male in the afternoon, and type "B" which is the reverse. So if you have a tree of each, both should bear fruit. Some varieties can do some self-pollinating, and in chilly weather, almost any variety can. But in most situations, it helps to have one of each.

Seedling trees will, indeed, flower and fruit, after about 5-7 years, and at a height of 15-20 feet. The only possible truth to the concept that seed-grown plants will never bear is if it is assumed that you'll keep them in the house and keep cutting the top out of them, so they never develop the needed height (actually number of nodes) to gain maturity.

Greetings from Dhaka, Bangladesh, y'all. Not seeing a lot of fruit here, but lots of mango, papaya, and jackfruit trees out of season.
Malcolm

Dr. Manners,

Thank you for the very clear info.
You have just saved the life of an unwary seedling that would have been sentenced to a life of periodic beheadings!

Bummer, though. No dwarf avocados, huh?
Maybe a project for someone?
This may be a stupid question but could you take some high branches from a mature tree and root them, retaining the node memory?

No dwarf avocados, huh?

There has been patio Avocados sold as dwarf
forms on the market for several years. I first
became aware of them in the wholesale nursery
trade in the late 80's, early 90's.

Below are a few online articles dealing with
Avocado rootstocks and related scion/rootstock
issues.

CLONAL AVOCADO (Persea americana Mill.) ROOTSTOCKS IN ISRAEL

Why Do We Need Continued Efforts in Avocado Scion and Rootstock Improvement

Plant Breeding and Genetics Panel Summary

Grafting and Budding

There are some good articles on Avocado rootstocks online in the
actahort.org web site such as:

ROOTSTOCK EFFECT ON AVOCADO VIGOR AND PRODUCTIVITY

AVOCADO ROOTSTOCK BREEDING, ESPECIALLY IN RELATION TO PHYTOPHTHORA

but to read these almost requires membership in the International Society
for Horticultural Science.

International Society for Horticultural Science

Snickles

There is a Florida variety called "Dwarf Lula," which is quite dwarf. I don't know how well it would do in other climates.

As for rooting cuttings from upper branches -- The theory is good, and would work for a few varieties (mainly pure Mexican race types), but most avocados are horrendously difficult to impossible to root from cuttings. Air layers have worked, using 1% 1-naphthaleneacetic acid in lanolin, but otherwise, air layers are also highly unlikely to work with most avocados.

Thanks for the info.. Guess I'll find new homes for these trees in spring so I can have more "productive" space. I have 10' ceilings but that is still not enough room for full grown trees and having a green house I would probably still not have enough height room.. So much for fresh guacamole with avocados off my own trees... at least I will still get fresh lemonade.. have to look for some dwarf avocado trees.
Gina *BabyBlue*

I have an avacado seedling which I tied down ninety degrees and it quickly grew back up so I imagine with a good ammount of width you could get a nice bush type of tree out of an avacado and have it fruit, although a shrub of a tree might take up a lot of space I think unless you could get bud wood for one and then it could grow smaller and still have fruit I think?
Sincerely,
James