Excellent information Richard. I eat an avocado nearly every day for lunch. I know I will never make it cost effective to grow my own avocados in zone 8, but it is on my bucket list.
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Do avocados shed most of their leaves during blooming? It seems that they do that to expose more of the inflorescence for pollination. Then in a short while comes the new leaves.
In the continental U.S., avocado is one of the least profitable fruits to grow unless you are one of the few ranchers with a lucrative Japanese contract. The profit margin for efficient growers here in San Diego county is only 8 cents per fruit.
Avocado trees with heritage from southern Mexico (e.g. Chiapas) through central America have a tendency to molt around April – as do some other fruiting trees from that region; e.g., White Sapote.
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It’s been warming up around here and today 3 near-ripe fruits dropped from our tree. They range in weight from 1.2 to 1.6 pounds. 
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almost a month later, my reed tree remains 27" tall, but it’s put out a few new gorgeous leaves, which have such a sheen to them that they look artificial.
i figure the tree is establishing its roots and beginning to overcome transplant shock.
had to dispatch a small green caterpillar that was surely engaging in malfeasance under those beautiful leaves.
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Pictures?
Looks happy!
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Does your Reed self pollinate? I don’t have room for two avocado trees.
For nearly all cultivated avocados: after they are mature enough to produce several inflorescences at the same time, on any day that the majority of flowers are open there will be some flowers in the male stage and other flowers in the female stage at the same time and available to bees. As such, the pollinated female flowers usually set fruit.
When a young avocado tree with perhaps a single inflorescence is in the range of bees visiting other avocado trees the plant will often set fruit.
There are a very few cultivars selected for research purposes which are functionally dioecious on a per-day basis. These need not concern backyard gardeners.
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Thanks Richard. Are Avocado trees easy to size control? I like the size of your tree in the photo from last March.
Well, it’s just a baby. The “Holiday” avocado is a hass-type with a wilting, meandering growth habit which proves easy to manipulate.
my Reed was planted about 14 months ago, and there was an inflorescence this spring. most of the BB-sized fruit dropped along the way—all but one, which has now ballooned to about 1 cm across.
i’m not counting on it to reach maturity next year, but i’d be happy if it did.
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Richard, I have been using an article I downloaded from UC ANR years ago as my avocado planting bible (Guide to Planting an Avocado Tree or Two) and just realized today that you wrote it, duh! Well, unless there is another R. Frost avo expert in San Diego… Do you still hold to the planting-two-avos-on-top-of-an-enormous-mound theory? Or a decided preference for clonal rootstock? I got avo fever last year after Julie Frink and Denny Lusby gave a talk to my CRFG chapter, but aside from some Sharwil scionwood I grafted onto an anonymous seedling I sprouted (doing very nicely, thank you), and a 5-gallon Stewart I located at Paradise Nursery (the sole avo I have been able to find – except for Haas and Fuerte – up here for over a year) I am only just now getting around to putting in some new babies (3-gallon Sharwil and Reed on Zutano stock and Pinkerton on clonal.) No way that I have 64 square feet of empty real estate anywhere in my yard but I do tend to plant all my tropicals and subtropicals on mounds of some sort, just rarely two feet high. Will my guys still give me some love (or at least some avos?)
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Wow, I didn’t know my article is on the ANR site 
.
Reed on Zutano should be a wonderful tree.
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Man, wish I could get my Fuerte to thrive. It just sits there. Almost like a dormant tree. Doesn’t die, but doesn’t flower or put on much new growth. It’s only a seedling about 3’ tall, but if it doesn’t show any promise by next spring…she’s gone!
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