Rooting avocado cuttings

General Fruit Growing
#41

Hey @swincher,

Would you mind telling me which widely available mexican avocados are not hybrids?

Also, is it your experience that mexican avocados are less susceptible to root rot issues?

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#42

I guess that depends on what you mean. I have not formally published the cultivar name, but it was chosen by the person who owns the ortet, who allowed @JohannsGarden to share scionwood with me. It’s a “true variety” as much as many cultivars that are shared under names that were never formally published either.

That question is a pretty tough one to answer, because the definitions of the three botanical groups (races) of avocado are a little fuzzy at the margins, so to speak. And especially for the topic of this thread (how easily they will root), I think each cultivar needs to be independently tested. Rooting ability is likely not the same for all pure Mexican cultivars.

That being said, varieties like Mexicola, Mexicola Grande, Poncho, Joey, etc., are generally considered to be “pure” Mexican avocados.

At times, people have treated Bacon, Fuerte, and Zutano as Mexican cultivars, but some (imperfect, marker-based) genetic studies suggest Bacon may be a pure Guatemalan type that just has very unusually thin skin. I suspect those three are hybrids, though, based on both phenotype and the fruit maturation time.

I have not encountered any root rot issues in my soil here, so I don’t know the answer. My soil is glacial sand & silt mostly with pretty good drainage. In-ground trees have thus far grown very well other than freeze damage.

In pots, most avocados seem to show root stress symptoms over the winter here, with the combination of constant rain and cool temperatures. I haven’t grown many other types, though, so I can’t really compare. It rarely seems to result in permanent decline, and they seem to grow out of it as soon as they go in the ground.

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#43

Thank you for the thorough answer, sir

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#44

According to bacon avocados, I can confirm that some of my seedlings have a bit of the typical anis odor of mexican cultivars. So they must be hybrids.