I was just looking to add a container grown Avocado and came accross a really interesting variety called GEM. From most accounts this is a very prolific dwarf that is every bit as tasty as Haas. Only problem is, it’s exceptionally hard to find. Anyone here have any experience with this variety?
Sorry to revive an old post, @Calron, but I saw these in the grocery store here and bought a few, so thought I’d share my opinion on them.
The good? Large fruit, with very good flavor and smooth texture (other than the fiber strands), and they seem to reliably change color about one day before being fully ripe on the counter, so that’s nice.
The bad? Thick, corky skin that breaks and crumbles easily, so this is a scooper not a peeler. Also, they have quite a bit more noticeable fiber than Hass, though the filaments are thin and not too noticeable in the mouth.
A couple photos, second one shows the fiber:
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Yummy!!! 
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Thanks for the taste/texture report. I did hold off on trying these from back when I posted this originally. Knowing now, it’s a pretty solid (flavor wise) avocado, I may look into one sometime this summer when I make more yard space 
Also worth noting that someone with more experience than me with this cultivar replied to my tweets to say that GEM usually doesn’t have a fiber issue, but it could be seasonal or based on conditions at a particular farm:
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Here is an article from someone who has experience with this cultivar (and other avocados): https://gregalder.com/yardposts/the-gem-avocado-tree-a-profile/
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Very detailed! It’s interesting that also doesn’t mention anything about the fruit being fibrous, but all five (just had one more) that I bought had lots of fiber. It’s a shame if the main farm distributing them here for the first time had that issue this year. If they keep offering them as the season progresses I’ll see if they improve next month.
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Greg is a leading Avocado expert. I read his blog weekly.
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Ricardo’s nursery in Long Beach has 15 gal trees if anyone is looking for this variety. I know that they also ship 5 gal plants but I’m not sure about the bigger plants.
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FYI this cultivar is recently off patent, so you can now get it from the UC Riverside avocado grove as scionwood. I confirmed this with them a few months ago, the patent expired early last year.
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Commercial avocado orchard trees are top-worked every 15-20 years lest they become too tall to efficiently harvest. About 3 decades ago Gem was experimentally top-worked on side orchards in Fallbrook CA. The packing houses that purchase from the growers found it inferior to improved Hass cultivars and did not offer as much per pound. It has since been removed.
As I’ve mentioned before on this site, the “Hass” that you buy at a supermarket or are served at a restaurant (e.g. Rubio’s) is not the “Hass” plant sold at nurseries. A knowledgeable nursery person will tell you latter is the original cultivar but there are many improved varieties – the most desired among them is currently Lulu. Thus, when someone says their avocado is as good or better than Hass, they are either mis-informed or purposely misleading, because it is not difficult to find improvements from the original.
As for restaurants and produce markets, “Hass” is a USDA grade of avocado with certain minimum requirements for oil content, skin texture, etc. For example, several CA packing houses will certify locally-grown “Stewart” as Hass grade. This is why you find “Hass” available in markets almost year round from successive-ripening cultivars instead of once per year from the original Hass.
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Great info. Thank you for sharing this!
Spotted these again at the grocery store this week. Again, they have overly crumbly skin that leaves grit in the flesh, as well as too much fiber. They do taste fine, but I would still say they are an all around disappointment. They were on sale for less than the Hass, at least, rather than more expensive (as in previous years), so it seems like the novelty has worn off.
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What kind of potting mix (DIY or store bought) do you recommend for avocados?
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This is a little off-topic but it’s easy to draw me off-topic to talk about avocados.
I don’t think anything will work well long-term, but almost anything will work in the short term as long as they are watered accordingly (frequently for a mix that dries quickly, infrequently for a mix that retains more water). Greg Alder summarized what some other people use in this great post, here’s the relevant bit:
- The grower of the two trees below is located in San Diego, and he uses mostly his native dirt along with Kellogg’s GroMulch, plus a little coffee grounds and horse manure. You can read the ingredients of the Kellogg’s GroMulch in the link, and note that it is mostly wood chips/compost (“recycled forest products and aged arbor fines”).
- The grower of the seedlings below has started dozens and dozens of his own trees for grafting and planting into his grove. He uses E.B. Stone’s Cactus and Succulent mix, which is made of (in order of volume from most to least) pumice, aged fir, aged redwood, lava rock, and sand.
- Brokaw Nursery in Ventura includes in their potting mix: wood chips, sand, soil, and coco coir.
- Maddock Ranch Nursery in Fallbrook includes in their mix: soil and redwood chips.
- Researchers at the University of California have grown thousands of avocados in containers over many decades and they have published the ingredients used in their mixes. In “Propagating Avocados” it is written, “At UC Riverside, we use UC #2 soil mix . . . based on ½ sand, ¼ peat moss, and ¼ nitrogenated redwood compost, plus added nutrients.”
My own trees are only being grown in containers for 12-18 months at most, and they never seem as happy in the container as they do once they go in the ground. Maybe it’s a bad potting mix! I use a local bulk garden mix, and I add a generous amount of perlite to that (I’ve also tried adding sand and it gets too compacted too fast).
One time I used Ocean Forest and that one looked very happy until it went in the ground (when it still looked even happier!). If you can afford that, I think it will be the best option. I did add more perlite to it, but that may not be necessary.
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I’ll send you a DM.
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The soil mix sold by Laguna Hills Nursery near me is what I use. They posted the recipe for it on their website. I’ve had home Depot trees and Brokaw clonal trees in the mix and they did great. These days I don’t bother potting, everything goes straight into the ground asap.
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I’ve posted this elsewhere too but I wanted to do a huge +1 on the Laguna Hills Nursery potting mix comment - Top Pot. I also like their “Acid Mix” as a base for acid loving plants.
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Whats in it? At what % ges.
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http://www.lagunahillsnursery.com/GRG-soil__nutrition__mulch.htm
Top pot is perlite, peat moss, pumice, charcoal, sand.
1 part peat/perlite/pumice, then 10% consisting of sand and charcoal.
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