I think most pure Mexican types are like that. I’ve eaten both Mexicola and Aravaipa with the skin on and they taste fine. Bacon is thin enough to eat, so I tried it too, but it tastes bitter.
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I never imagine to eat a bacon skin… for me it’s not much thin…
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I wonder if there are multiple Bacon varieties, too? This is the Bacon I’ve tried (and source of my Bacon seedlings):
It’s hard to tell how thin it is from the photos, but it was paper thin and soft.
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Mine are very small… but like that.
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Maybe your climate causes the skin to be thicker than in California? If so, the same thing might happen for the Mex Grande.
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This one will kill you… avocado and feijoa jam! 
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I posted a twitter thread surveying frost damage after we got down to 25°F last night. Mostly good news, some damage though. Because twitter may face an early demise soon, I unrolled the thread here instead:
And archived here in case that website doesn’t actually store local copies:
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After second night in a row around 25°F (this time 12 hours below 30°), I’m amazed to report that grafts of Northrop, Aravaipa, and Poncho still show essentially zero leaf damage, let alone stem damage.
Here’s Northrop (the damaged branch is from the rootstock, which hopefully won’t die this winter if it’s that tender):
This is what Northrop looked like early this morning:
Here’s Poncho:
And Aravaipa:
Here are the last couple nights:
About half the outside seedlings show significant leaf damage, and most of them have at least a tiny bit of damage. This one year-old Aravaipa seedling is among the least damaged:
This Duke seedling is more typical of the first-year seedlings, with older leaves mostly ok but newer leaves turned crispy:
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Very nice results!
Unfortunately temperatures during our winters can stay below freezing for an entire week. Unlike this event where we got cold temps and pretty quick bounce back. I wonder how they’d do when there is no warm up period.
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Last winter when it was 6 days below freezing with a low of 16°F, there was nearly 100% dieback to ground level on first-year seedlings, and only about 30% re-grew in the spring from the roots. But this year there’s a much wider array of different seedlings, including some healthy second-year trees. I’m hoping this winter won’t have another freeze like last year.
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Just got a WHOLE BUNCH of seeds from a generous collaborator in Gainesville, FL, including 45 Del Rio seeds (!!!), and smaller bags of some other varieties. Looks like the spring 2024 tree distribution will have lots of trees available!
Here are the Del Rio seeds going on the heating pad to germinate:
And a few of the others being rinsed:
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I’ve had pretty good luck just germinating them piled in a glass jar with a lid. I just open occasionally to rinse them off (which keeps the moisture level about right). As they germinate I pull them out and pot them individually. It’s a good way to minimize the space they take up prior to germination. I haven’t tried germinating them with supplemental heat though.
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I’ve tried a few methods, including something similar to that, and they all work pretty well. Be very diligent about fungal spots appearing if they are piled on each other, it’ll spread fast.
Heat and light both seem to help germination, but the most important thing is to keep them from drying out, but without being too soggy or getting anaerobic. I like soil takeout trays on heating pads because they are easy to inspect and don’t require much tending other than an occasional misting and removing sprouted seeds.
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How long does it approximately take to get to fruit bearing age? How large does a seedling avocado need to be before it can produce fruit?
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I had one seedling Hawaiian avocado take 7 yrs to fruit, the second seedling tree took 17 yrs to have the first fruit. Still have both trees, but the one that fruited earlier has better tasting fruits so I’m keeping that one, but the other larger one is used as my rootstock tree for multi-grafting other varieties.
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My understanding is Mexican varieties are often much earlier to fruit than Guatemalan types, though there is huge variation. Both of the people who have been helping with this project from Gainesville, FL said their Mexican avocado seedling trees typically first fruit between 3 and 8 years.
From the papers I’ve read, it seems total nodes is likely the trigger for flowering, but there’s lots of variation from seedling to seedling.
I’ll be grafting the hardiest seedlings we find in the project back onto mature greenhouse trees in the hope they will flower sooner there, and will also be cloning named cultivars via rooting, in case any of the named cultivars actually prove hardy enough to survive most winters.
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How large do they need to get before fruiting?
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As I understand it, that also varies a lot. I have only been growing seedlings for a couple years now without any flowering. I’ve heard that seedling trees start fruiting around 12-15’ in north Florida, but it may be different in our climate.
Grafts flower in one year and my understanding is usually start holding fruit within 3 years. Based on the size of my greenhouse trees, I’m expecting at least some fruit set this coming year, but maybe only a few. They flowered a lot last winter/spring, but no fruit.
Since I’m expecting to kill almost all the trees I’m growing outdoors, I’m not too worried yet about how long it’ll take them to flower. I’ll be excited enough if any of the outdoor trees get anywhere near flowering size!
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I just went around and looked at the trees again now that they’ve all had a few days to show more clearly the extent of their damage from two nights in a row around 25°F. This isn’t a comprehensive list of all the trees outside, just an overview of some notable winners & losers.
Minimal damage
The seedling showing the least frost damage of all is #138, a seedling of Aravaipa:
I am excited that I happened to plant that tree in such a prominent location in the middle of the front lawn. Hopefully we avoid any severe freezes this winter, as I’d love to see that tree get bigger before facing a harder test than this one.
The small graft of Aravaipa that’s outside shows no visible damage:
Same goes for Poncho/Pancho (upper branch in this photo), though its “Purple Nebula” seedling rootstock (lower branch) shows slight leaf damage:
Northrup/Northrop still shows only minimal damage, though the “Purple Nebula” seedling rootstock (lower center branches) shows more moderate/significant leaf damage:
Mild to Moderate Damage
This second-year seedling of Mexicola Grande made it through the first 25°F night without any sign of damage, but the second morning the leaves were covered in quite a bit of frost, and that frost appears to have caused leaf damage, though for some reason only on some of the branches:
This first-year Duke seedling shows the least damage of any of the Duke seedlings, with only the more tender leaves damaged and the buds and older leaves mostly fine:
The other first-year Duke seedlings mostly show only slightly more damage, but some of them seem to have stem damage near the growing tips and curling of more mature leaves:
This first-year Aravaipa seedling is a little more damaged than its hardier sibling at the top of this post, but still not too bad considering it was a less vigorous and smaller tree:
Here is the least-damaged Royal-Wright seedling, a second-year tree, and the only Royal-Wright seedling not in the serious damage/death category:
Here are a couple Mexicola seedlings, both first-year, and both with only moderate leaf damage and intact stems/buds:
Serious Damage / Death
This second-year Bacon seedling, which regrew from the roots after last winter, looks like it will have to try to do the same again this year, as it seems to have suffered complete leaf death and near-complete stem death:
The most vigorous tree from last year (a Royal-Wright seedling) looks like it might be in the process of dying back to ground level again:
Here are a couple other Royal-Wright seedlings (first-year and second-year, respectively), which show similar severe damage:
Observations
Based on this, I think I will be culling “Royal-Wright” from the grafted tree collection – only one of its seedlings seems to have survived somewhat unscathed, and even the larger second-year seedlings look to have taken severe damage at only 25°F. Since it is one of the larger branches on a greenhouse tree, it can make a framework for grafting something better, perhaps Northrop or Mexicola Grande, both of which are not currently grafted on in-ground greenhouse trees.
“Aravaipa” looks like a really good cold-hardy option, as it is both the least-damaged graft and has the least-damaged seedling. So far the “winner” varieties based on either grafts or seedlings’ hardiness are:
- Aravaipa
- Poncho/Pancho
- Northrup/Northrop
- Mexicola Grande
And the experiment continues…
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