Yes they are. They’re grown from seeds provided by @JoeReal
If you scroll up, you’ll see the progress.
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WOW! They are growing very well! Congratulations!
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Hi @JoeReal: I am new this forum and learning a lot from your posts about avocados. I am not sure how to send PM but I would love to receive Duke seeds from you to try grafting. Thank you
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Hi @JoeReal: Thank you for posting details about avocado hardiness. Duke and Lula are recommended varieties as rootstock for Houston area - hot, humid, clay soil, and still get some freezing days. I have noticed that Wilma and Opal varieties grafted onto these rootstocks do well. However, it is truly difficult to find Duke and Lula seeds to start rootstocks.
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Joe are you still able to share Duke seeds? I would like to experiment with them here in Sonoma County to build community resilience and food sovereignty. If you’re able to share some seeds I would be most appreciative!
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Figured I would make yet another update. Only one of the plants made it into the ground this spring, but it looks currently like this and it’s thriving as far as I can tell. The light is a bit off due to all the smoke we have in the area at the moment, but you can clearly see how gorgeous the tree is. Or so I think anyway…I may be biased. It’s about 4 feet tall now, and it was born in February of last year.
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Hello Joe/all. I know this topic might be a bit old, can anyone advise that this variety will grow well in hot humid temperatures where I live in Sugarland/Houston - Texas ? Zone 9A, Summer temperatures 90s to low 100s, humidity 70s to 80s ? Chill hours between 400-600 Thanks!
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Hi, Joe. You are the guy I have been looking for. I just PM’d you about obtaining some Duke Rootstock to start grafting my own Avocados. If you have any rootstock and cuttings available at the right time (January or February) please let me know and I will be happy to buy from you. I would love to talk to you also on the phone and you have my number from the PM I sent just a few minutes ago. Give my a call when you get a chance. I look forward to speaking with you.
Charlie in Nashville
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Since avocado do not grow true to type from seed, the fruit you obtain will be of interest to many.
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Joe Real was last seen on this site Mar 12, '20.
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Would love to hear another update on that one @MockY! Duke seedlings have proven fairly vigorous and hardy for me, even those planted out after only one year from seed. This seedling of Duke was less than one year from germination when it had its first hard freeze last fall, and survived a winter low of 17°F, but re-grew from well above ground and is already at least as big as it was at the end of last season:
You can see more photos here (it may take a moment or two to load them all), including photos taken right after the worst freeze events and before spring growth started this year.
It did have slight protection for the worst couple freezes (an upside down flower pot, no heat source). I’m hoping with an El Niño winter this year, we can avoid any freeze damage so it can size up even better next year. I’ve also planted and distributed other seed siblings that were kept in the greenhouse this last winter, so there may be others that are hardier but so far that’s the best.
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Hi@swincher, could you please share the source of duke seeds. Has it fruited for you?
I have tried so many including supposedly cold hardy varieties, but they all die when we have a few freezing days in Gulf Coast area.
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@BBF
Duke and Lula seeds will not grow Duke or Lula rootstock. Lula is a Hass-grade Avocado sold in supermarkets. Sometimes the sticker number on avocados indicates the actual cultivar – but you’ll have to look up the number.
Lula is a green-skinned cultivar mostly grown in Florida, both for fruit and for seeds to use as seedling rootstock for the retail nursery trade. It’s popular as a rootstock because its seedlings tend to have good tolerance for the alkaline soils there, but the fruit is highly susceptible to scab. Here’s a photo of what they look like when they aren’t scabby, I’m not sure this could pass for Hass:
I think a big part of the problem is all the nurseries there pretty much exclusively use Lula seedlings as rootstock. I have never had a Lula seedling rootstock survive the winter, even below ground, and even 4+ year-old trees, but nearly every pure Mexican-race seedling I’ve grown has at least survived below ground and regrown from the roots the next year, even with 6+ days below freezing 24/7 and lows in the 16-17°F range. Nevertheless, every retail and wholesale propagation nursery in FL uses Lula seedlings, and most Gulf Coast nurseries source their avocados from those places. I called over a dozen nurseries offering “cold-hardy” avocados from south FL to the panhandle, 100% of them said that’s the rootstock they use, and the reason they gave was that it didn’t matter how hardy the rootstock is. Which I can clearly debunk. But their way sells more trees I guess!
Hi @swincher, could you please share the source of duke seeds. Has it fruited for you?
I got my Duke seeds from Marta, she sometimes sells a few if she has extras, but mostly she uses them as rootstocks herself. My 2nd year Duke grafts flowered nicely in my greenhouse this spring but they didn’t hold any fruit. They have grown a lot since then, so I’m hoping they will start bearing next year, along with a half-dozen other cultivars that are big enough to hold a few fruit at least. I’m not just using them as rootstocks though because the project I’m organizing is primarily trying to find seedlings of hardy cultivars that are even hardier than their parents, which mostly cannot survive here without significant dieback. So once my greenhouse starts producing seeds, I’ll be distributing (for free) the seedlings locally here in the PNW to members of our project.
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This page has more information about the various Duke rootstocks:
The seedlings of Duke are remarkably uniform, with vigorous growth but tight internodes. I can see why so many of its seedlings have been selected to be clonally propagated. I think most people would find most Duke seedlings to be just as satisfactory of a rootstock as those UC selections.
To give an example of what I mean, here was the “seedling class” of last year in October, with the Duke seedlings circled:
They look almost like clones! Far less variation than among the seedlings of other cultivars. For those curious about the other seedlings, here was the original caption when I first posted that photo:
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Thanks Richard. I didn’t know that numbers on the fruit may inform Duke, Lula or other origin. I will have to try next time I visit HEB.
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Thank you @swincher for sharing the information. Reading your posts make me think there is still hope and I need to try one more time to grow some of the suggested cold hardy varieties again. I will focus on Mexican, Duke and arivappa this time.
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I think you have a much better chance of success there in 9a along the Gulf than I do here, especially if you can protect it until it’s been in the ground for a couple years, but you probably will still get significant winter dieback any year you get into the teens.
If you ever are over in the Gainesville (FL) area I can put you in touch with a couple different guys who use seedlings of their local trees (Del Rio, May, Gainesville, etc) as rootstocks, but they don’t ship trees.
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Here’s another seedling of Duke, this one was entirely unprotected throughout the winter, but seems to be bouncing back ok:
By contrast, this Duke seedling (grafted with “Del Rio” on the left side) was kept in the greenhouse for the coldest part of winter, and will stay in this 15 gal pot until next spring, when it’ll go in the ground:
The yellow leaves are last year’s growth that it is in the process of shedding.
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