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I am sure that’s the one. Thank you for sharing the photos! Are there no fruit on it this year?
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Yes, there are fruits on the tree, I forgot to take photos of them. They are 2-3 inches long by now
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Look at this avocado tree. It supposed to be a mexicola seedling. But the leaves are large and round. Could it be crossed with a guatemalan variety? Don’t they have rounder leaves? They still have the typical mexican smell.
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I’ve seen every possible combination of leaf color, shape, and texture among the pure Mexican-type cultivars. I generally find that Guatemalan-Mexican hybrids lose the scent in the first generation, so if those have the scent then both seed and pollen parents are probably Mexican. Mexicola Grande seedlings can have somewhat wide/large leaves. Here’s one of mine:
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Very happy with the growth rate on this “Teague” tree on a Hass seedling rootstock, the first photo was when it went in the ground in January, second photo is what it looks like now, and that’s despite cutting 5 sticks of scionwood earlier this summer:
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How do you germinate your seeds? Just remove the outer coat and plunk into potting soil? I am randomly throwing the seeds into the ground. It takes more than 8-9 months for the seeds to germinate (by that I mean, when I see some top growth). Someone mentioned that seeds planted directly in the ground will have an established taproot and less susceptible to root rot and drought. Once I did remove the top soil and tried to dig out the seeds after a few months and it was so hard to pry them out as they have already started sending out very strong taproots. I wonder if there is any truth to that hypothesis of in-place seed grown rootstocks.
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I usually remove the seed coat (unless it’s a variety that’s very difficult to remove), and then place them in trays of soil on a heating pad until the root emerges, then put them in their starter pots. Here’s a post showing that first stage:
I like the tall treepots because they allow the taproots to get longer before they hit the bottom, but I do believe direct sowing would be even better in an appropriate climate like yours.
Depending on the variety, I usually see root growth between 1 week and 3 months, but occasionally not for 6+ months. Top growth is usually 3 to 8 months from when I start germinating them.
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Here’s the tallest graft in the greenhouse, Jade, which is right at the 8 ft rafters and pushing a strong flush:
My plan is to top all the branches just above the rafters to encourage more bushy branching, though I also use paracord a lot to pull branches around when they flop the wrong way or something. You can see in the photo where I’m using it to keep this tree pulled away from the outer wall a bit.
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And the tallest outside tree (#37, seedling of Mexicola Grande), which is also pushing a flush currently:
Two year-old for scale (it’s about 7 ft tall (the tree, not the toddler)).
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Just potted up a nice looking Aravaipa seedling:
It’s hard to believe that it looked like this a mere 9 months ago:
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Is the big one Duke? Between Aravaipa and Duke, which one is more consistently produce heavily every year? Are they similar in size and taste?
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The big one is Duke. Marta can probably answer the rest better. I only have tried Duke fruit once, it was not bad, but in terms of taste, Mexicola is definitely better than either Duke or Aravaipa, even though they are smaller.
I’d say Aravaipa is the least good out of those three, but we still ate a whole box of them happily. They are a little less creamy and lack any kind of nutty taste, but no offensive/off flavors and no problems with fiber or seed coat adhering to the flesh. They are a little smaller than Duke, larger than Mexicola. Here are some photos of Aravaipa fruit I got from Marta, unfortunately with nothing for scale:
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They are beautiful.
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Has that tree been outside it’s entire life?
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No. It was outside in a pot for its first winter (2021/2022), when it was one of the only potted trees that was not killed entirely by this 6-day freeze with a low of 16°F in December 2021:
As its reward for regrowing from the roots so vigorously last year, it spent the most recent winter in its pot in the greenhouse, and was planted out in early March this year. It had one night around 27°F soon after planting out and showed only very mild frost damage on new leaves at the time. It has basically doubled in size since then.
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That sounds very promising. And with an El Niño winter upcoming for 2023/24 that could really help it get established. I’m counting on that too for several of my own specimens. Fingers crossed.
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Gcc
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