Since the first post in this thread is very outdated, I thought it might be a good time to post an updated list of all my currently living grafted varieties and seedlings, and this list doesn’t include ones I’ve already distributed to people in this area for testing (about a dozen in total). Here goes…
Grafted varieties
Duke
Royal-Wright
Brazos Belle
Joey
Stewart
Long South Gate
Aravaipa
Linh
Mayo
Northrup
Poncho
Jade
Walter Hole
Teague
Ganter
Del Rio
Unknown criollo (from a central California public park with fruit superficially resembling Mexicola)
Unknown landscape tree (from near Santa Rosa, CA, possibly a grafted Mexicola tree, or a Mexicola seedling)
Seedling trees (including used as rootstocks)
(x14) Mexicola seedlings
(x10) Duke seedlings
(x7) Aravaipa seedlings (plus 10x new seeds germinating)
(x15) Royal-Wright seedlings
(x3) Mexicola Grande seedlings
(x18) Bacon seedlings
(x12) Zutano seedlings
(x2) Fuerte seedlings
(x3) Purple Nebula seedlings
(x2) Unknown criollo seedlings from northern CA
(x2) GEM seedlings (not likely hardy, but planted out)
(x??) Hass seedlings (a few as greenhouse rootstocks, a few planted out to be murdered by the winter weather, a bunch in a neglected community pot in a corner of the yard)
I’d be happy to share scionwood at that time if you’re located somewhere that doesn’t restrict it, though my collection is geared more toward potential hardiness than fruit quality or size. Not all of the grafted varieties listed in my last post will be large enough to cut by spring, but many of them will be.
I haven’t been able to figure out why a small (but persistent) percentage of seedlings of Mexicola suffer severe bronzing in direct sun. Here’s an example from the 1 year-old seedlings that were moved about a month ago from their summer “mostly shaded” location to their fall “mostly direct sun” location:
I’ll be “culling” it by planting it in the section of my garden for avocado trees that are either weak or from non-hardy seed parents, which I’ve nicknamed “Death Row.”
A few of them seem to be stalling a little, though, and as I said last time, more than half of the outdoor trees have already gone dormant, and none of those seem to be changing their minds.
Tomorrow’s predicted high in my northerly PNW region is 70F… compared to last year’s 53F!
Good growing and ripening weather for another week…best grape crop in years.
I drastically pruned my 12 year old Saijo last winter…and consequently only got 1 fruit!! I realized too late that you shouldn’t do that to a tip-bearer!!
My recent post listing the seedlings and grafted varieties gave a good idea of the total size of the collection, but not necessarily how many of those I’ll be making available for local distribution next spring. Here’s that group:
(11x) Royal-Wright seedlings (diagonal row through the middle)
(5x) Bacon seedlings (bottom-left row)
(5x) Grafted varieties (top-left near the figs)
(4x) Mexicola seedlings (top cluster in center-left)
(2x) Aravaipa seedlings (large & medium-large pot in top, center-right)
(1x) Zutano seedling (centered just below the top)
Which, if my counting skills are functional, adds up to 34 trees in total. A few of these are second-year seedlings, but most of them were first germinated about a year ago or in early spring of this year. The grafted varieties might get one or two additions depending on how some recent grafts grow this fall and in the spring, but the 5 in that photo are:
Brazos Belle
Linh
Jade
Del Rio
a mystery ortet with black fruit vaguely resembling Mexicola, found growing in a central California public park
I’ll be sending out a sign-up link in the next couple weeks, where people can join the project and indicate how many trees they would want to trial, and I’ll deliver them in mid-to-late spring some time. I’m only going to include people living in essentially my same regional climate (zone 8+ in lowlands of WA, maybe down to Portland area at the furthest).
I’ve only ever gotten one batch of seeds from a backyard grower in southern CA. He responded to a post I made asking for seeds on another site a few years ago, but we’ve lost touch. If you can get to Riverside CA to pick them up in person, you can get scions from the UC South Coast Research Grove. The original name of the cultivar usually sold as “Mexicola Grande” is “3-1-1”:
Unfortunately that was one that I didn’t successfully graft, but I’ll be getting it again at some point. The three seedlings of Mexicola Grande that I’m still growing have been vigorous, so I do think it’s a good candidate for either rootstock or breeding.
I did a few inadvisable late-season bench grafts in the greenhouse last night, and I’m about to do a few more tonight. @Jestronic’s question motivated me to track down the grower who had provided me with the Mexicola Grande seeds a couple years ago. Unfortunately, he has since topworked the tree with another variety, so couldn’t offer seeds. But, he said there were still a few nurse branches of Mexicola Grande that he was planning to remove, so I just got a bundle of scions. He threw in a few scions of other Mexican avocado varieties, including Jan Boyce (technically a hybrid I believe), which I don’t suspect will be cold hardy, but I’m willing to give it a try.
I didn’t photograph all the grafts last night, but here are a couple of them:
It is a very slow process, not for the impatient. I started these in the greenhouse on a heating pad in March, and they only started showing top growth about a month ago and last week, respectively. And these were two out of eight original cuttings. Most of them shriveled in the first few weeks, though a third one held out until August before giving up.
Even for anyone not interested in actually joining the project, you may find the new website’s tree directory a little more user-friendly than the old one, since you can filter by things like whether it has survived a winter, or whether it’s a grafted cultivar or seedling/clone:
However, as the disclaimer at the top says, I still have lots of updating to do in terms of adding new trees and updating photos and descriptions for many older ones.
