Oh yeah we are close. I am in Diamond Bar. That year I think we hit 110 for me in the summer lol.
That one in Folsom had mainly Pinkerton and Fuerte. My friend grabbed the solo Mexicola Grande. I grabbed a Gem avocado from that company(LaVerne) for $55 at a local nursery but it was a 5g. Funny thing is nobody could say what rootstock it was on. I tried calling the company and the purchasing manager from the nursery tried for several weeks.
1 Like
In my opinion, Costco offers a few good things at low prices, such as roast chicken and avocado trees. However, they don’t carry any avocado varieties I’d like to have, including Reed, Gwen, Sharwill or Carmen, let alone rare ones. The only variety I like to buy from there is Hass. It is absolutely cheap. I saw they were selling Fuerte, Gem, Little Cado, and Zutano. Some people may be interested in those.
1 Like
Of course not.
That is likely the original cultivar, not the improved strains developed in the last 50 years.
Further, Hass in a produce market or restaurant is a grade of Avocado determined by the USDA and packing houses. There are at least 7 cultivars grown in CA that meet the Hass grade.
I didn’t know there was such a thing as an ‘improved strain’ of Hass. Good to know. I hope there is a visible difference in the avocados; otherwise, no one will be able to tell them apart. I know Gwen and Carmen are supposed to be improved Hass varieties, if I’m not mistaken. However, the most recently discovered variety by UC Riverside, called UCR Luna, is known to be an improved Hass.
@Richard I called Durling and they said they use seedling rootstock for their avocado trees. I found a nursery named Subtropica in Fallbrook, CA that sells avocados grafted on clonal rootstock. They are $45 a tree. I am not sure about the tree size for that price.
They sell: Hass, Reed, Edranol, Ettinger, Kona Sharwil, Sirprize, Bacon, Pinkerton, Zutano, Lamb Hass, Hass Rio, Fuerte, Gwen, Hellen, Nabal, Julia, Mexicola, Carmen Hass® and Gem®. They use the following rootstock: Day, Fairchild, Toro Canyon, Dusa® (Merensky 2), Tami, Miriam, Duke 7.
1 Like
Is Subtropica reselling Brokaw trees, or doing the grafting themselves?
@swincher Subtropica offers 19 varieties whereas Brokaw only offers 9. Based on that I would guess their trees are not from Brokaw. It is possible they are getting their trees somewhere else. I’ll ask when I stop by this weekend.
1 Like
EDIT: I just looked at their website, and it’s pretty clear they do their own cloning. Thank you for pointing us to them! I’ll be reaching out soon myself.
I drove to Fallbrook a few weeks ago to buy some trees on clonal rootstock from Subtropica. Unfortunately they only offer the clonal rootstock on commercial varieties such as Hass and Gem. The Nabal and Sharwil trees I bought from them were on Zutano seedling. Got a Gem on Tami rootstock. Will be interesting to see how that does compared to the trees on seedling rootstock.
2 Likes
Nice report. I have yet to visit Subtropica but I feel good with my current avocado collection. I recall hearing that not all the clonal rootstocks are compatible with all the cultivars either. I think it was The Graftman on youtube who had a clonal Sharwil that would not grow.
Maybe you’ll get lucky on the seedlings like my Stewart 
1 Like
This would be very surprising to me. As far as I know every avocado is graft compatible with every other avocado. Now if you mean “produces poorly” or “grows with poor vigor,” then that is certainly possible for certain cultivar/rootstock combinations, but I don’t think graft compatibility is an issue unless you’re trying to graft on other species of Persea.
1 Like
Ah yes, you are correct! I used the wrong word. They are compatible, but some combinations have poor vigor. Thank you for pointing that out 
1 Like
I recently learned that rootstock is crucial for avocado growth and for imparting resistance to conditions like root rot and salinity. I’ve heard that Dusa is considered one of the best rootstocks, said to be superior to Duke 7. However, other research suggests that Duke 7 may perform better in areas with dry heat tolerance.
I just started to dig into this info only after seeing my Reed tree is not growing well, looks like stunted. It grew only a few millimeter for a year.
1 Like
I read a research paper about GEM on DUSA. GEM trees in commercial orchards were dying at higher than expected rates on DUSA rootstock. They attributed it to the DUSA rootstock starving the GEM scion due to there being a significant difference in growth rates. Graft incompatibilities don’t necessarily lead to an immediate failure of the graft.
Do you have a link to that? I realize that delayed graft incompatibility is a thing, but I’ve never seen any paper discussing it for avocados, so I’d love to give it a read.
EDIT: I found a Q&A where Dr. Arpaia mentions that Dusa isn’t good in high pH soils (she mentions it in response to a few questions, not just this one), and that GEM seems especially bad on Dusa in high pH soils:
Q: What rootstock do you recommend for GEMs? Dusa rootstock seems ill-matched because DUSA rootstock grows more vigorously than the GEM scion.
Mary Lu Arpaia: We have data from the Butler trial with 9 rootstocks. Most of our trials have been with Dusa and on high pH soils. We have had a lot of chlorosis on this rootstock requiring the use of iron chelates. We do not have data with Toro Canyon. If you contact me later, I can share the data from the Lloyd-Butler trial since we now have just collected the 2020 yield data.
1 Like