Avocado considerations

I’d rather go without Avocado than eat Mexicola.

some people actually like mexicola

here’s another mexicola grower who enjoys the ‘fruits of her labor’.
and with first-hand experience of avocados actually surviving 17F.

Mexicola tastes a lot better than Mexicola Grande and when properly harvested at the right time, can be at par with Hass.

1 Like

If you have saline sodic soils and well water high in mineral salts, selenium and boron, they told that no avocados would survive. And indeed it is true that none of the commercially available avocados from the big box stores and even the specialty nurseries would survive.

I manage to find the best rootstock for such a case and they tolerate the freeze here up in Northern California. These are from the seeds of Duke avocado.

Here’s the Mexicola and Hass Seedlings, also the Zutano, and Toro they all look like this when grown in our area and using city water which are pumped from the wells:

In contrast, here are the Duke Seedlings:

And soon I would be able to test the Aravaipa seedlings after my graft of Aravaipa have mature fruits. I suspect that this Arizona avocado would do as well as Duke seedlings.

Both the Aravaipa and Duke are really among the cold hardiest avocados. After all, the Duke has survived more than 80 years in the inland Northern California Valley where we had several record breaking freezes down to 10F and yet it only had a few leaf damage. Regularly they just shrug off the 20F winters without a scratch. In mild winters, getting down to 24-26F, they even are showing some growth. And the Aravaipa is cold hardier than the Duke, based on my observations. The Aravaipa is also able to tolerate wet soils. It came from a 125 year old tree in Arizona that has survived several record breaking temperature than can go down to 10F or lower and has survived floods and every wintry conditions and severe ones during the past 125 years. From among my graft, it can tolerate the cold and the heat very well.

Here in my yard, we get ice and frost every winter, if you leave the bucket. My pond gets covered with ice and my pond has a shade netting over it.


And now on it’s third year, this multi-grafted avocado using the cold hardiest avocados that I can find has set a lot of fruits!

4 Likes

Anyone have any experience in the PNW. I’m just south of Seattle in 8b and from my research the mexicola variety can survive down to 18 degrees. It almost never gets that cold here (quick check says 3 times in 20 years) if need be I could wrap and string up some lights. I read that they don’t like soggy roots so I was thinking making a 4"*4"*2 raised bed filled with one of the mixes from the soil yard that’s at least 50% sand.
What do you think? Am I crazy?

You’re probably crazy lol.
But seriously I think you’ll never get Avocados to fruit in your area. They are a real project here in 9B with a much warmer/drier climate. It’s just their flowering schedule is so precise as to temps, time, and sunlight, in that, to have all things come together is a long shot at best. I could be wrong, but I’ve NEVER heard a successful case in PNW. Remember being 8b doesn’t really mean anything other then it’s not going to freeze to death.

Quick example; here in the Bay Area San Fran is 10A/10B and they can’t grow sweet oranges - simply because they don’t have enough heat. Meanwhile, I can grow them no problem in 9B.
Good luck. Keep us posted!

You are dreaming if you think mexicola could even survive one winter in the ground south of Seattle. 8B south of Seattle, perhaps 1,000 miles south? I laugh out loud. Sub tropicals typically can take a few hours of below freezing weather. You get days of sub freezing weather every year. I grew up in the Seattle area. 8B means it gets to 15F. Your area has got 5F or lower in the past in the past, hardly 8B. You also don’t get enough heat in the summer for sub tropicals.