It’s a seedling of Duke selected by @JoeReal that has black skin when ripe.
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There are a lot of posts in this thread so my apologies if this was discussed already - but if I can grow citrus in my greenhouse, will I have equal success with avocados? Or are they more difficult? I’m in the Northeast 6b.
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Avocados, especially the more hardy varieties, have a similar hardiness to something like a satsuma, but that’s just in terms of sheer survival.
If you actually want to produce fruit reliably, an avocado tree needs to be larger than a citrus tree (8+ ft tall and 6+ ft wide at a minimum, bigger is better), and avocados can be more finicky about temperatures during flowering (some cultivars will not set fruit at all if the low is below the low 50s°F during flowering). Also, while avocados are technically self-fertile, their flowers open at different times of day as male and female, so you will probably want two complementary cultivars (type A and B), and even under ideal conditions they have very very low fruit set (1 in 400 flowers would be excellent fruit set on a mature tree).
Avocados also don’t do well in pots long-term, so you will probably need to plant them in the ground in your greenhouse, or a very large container (50+ gal maybe) can sometimes work.
So even though the short answer is “yes” that they have similar temperature and humidity needs, it’s a lot easier to have a productive greenhouse citrus tree than an avocado.
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Sad to report the last Linh fruit aborted last night, it looks like some kind of rot maybe. Down to just a few fruit left, maybe won’t get any this year after all.
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I visited the Cloverdale Avocado tree that I heard about. To me it doesn’t fully fit the description of along the roadside. More alike in someones front yard but hidden up some innocent little lane.
The person who told me about it says he thinks new growth is green, but doesn’t know for sure…I’m trying to get the owner’s contact info to learn more. It also had a very strong anise scent, it permeated everything:
cutting any stem = anise
sniffing crumpled leaf = burnt nose
The Tree:
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Aha! Yeah that’s not the one I was thinking of, I looked at my notes and the one I was thinking of is in Miranda, not Cloverdale (it’s about 130 miles further north, growing right on the side of the Avenue of the Giants south of town). Thank you for sharing!
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Well my dad was driving past there, so I gave him those directions.
He talked to the owner’s daughter, got the owner, Leland’s contact info. No cuttings, she said ask first because her father got very angry the last time someone took cuttings without permission.
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Looks healthy!
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Here’s an example of one of the many (150+) seedlings started this year for distribution next spring. Mostly they are still in their deepots, but this got an upgrade today. Figured I’d show the transplant process that I’ve found works best for deepots.
First, I fill the new pot with loose potting mix while holding a deepot upright in the center (can either be empty or still have the tree in it):
Then I carefully slip the tree out of its pot:
I “wiggle” the deepot in the bigger pot to slightly compact the soil around it to easily remove without dirt filling the hole:
Carefully lower the tree into the hole:
Then, gently lift and drop the pot a few times to settle the soil a bit, and top it off with new mix and water it in:
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Thank you @CAvocado (and your dad too!) for getting permission to collect cuttings from that tree in Miranda, CA. Leland and his wife have named it “Miranda Emerald Giant” he seems happy that it has been added to the project collection. So far I’ve done three grafts (just posted photos of the latest graft in this other thread), and will be doing a few more this week at least.
Here’s how Leland described the tree:
The tree was planted approximately 38 years ago by my wife’s mother. There have been some very deep snow packs over the years, maybe 4 times where the temps were below 20 or 25 for a couple weeks , I have never seen any effect from the freezes to speak of. It has a very thin skinned fruit that starts to freckle before ripening. They are very tasty and have a nutty flavor . They are a medium sized fruit with an oval shape. The neck is very short.
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I realized while doing another one of these today that this one sentence covered enough ground for an entire clarifying post. Anyone who’s tried to remove a tree with vigorous roots from a Steuwe deepot has likely damaged a few before figuring out the trick of it.
First, I put my left hand over the top, with the stem between my fingers, and invert the pot (I know, so far pretty obvious):
It’s unlikely that you will feel the roots come loose at this point, but if you do, you can skip the next step.
With my right hand, I gently squeeze the bottom of the pot, and while maintaining a squeezing pressure, slide that hand along the tube toward the other hand (yes, in a vaguely lewd way), basically starting like this first photo, then the second one, and all the way to the other end where your other hand is:
Sometimes this doesn’t work the first time and then I rotate the tube 1/4 of the way and repeat it. It almost always comes loose before I have done that 4 or 5 times.
Once it’s loose, there’s still a risk that the root ball will break off, damaging the roots severely, so to support the weight, I slide the pot off while resting the roots on my left forearm:
Once you have two hands to support them, the tree can usually be lowered into the previously prepared hole without any injury to the roots.
It’s remarkable the amount of growth I’m seeing on avocado seedlings in these pots. This is barely halfway through the first growing season for this tree, it’s already taller above ground than the 14" deepot:
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Nice tip on getting them out. I had a couple issues with garcinias and my white sapote. Luckily, I have the expertise to try your method 
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It’s been a busy few days for me with some avocado chores I’d been putting off, mostly potting things up and grafting a bunch of them. I also delivered and planted 11 trees for a member of the project yesterday.
Here are the new trees still waiting to get potted up or planted out:
A small sample of the trees that have been potted up:
The row of 11 trees I planted for a project member yesterday:
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Hi there @swincher.
I’m not really a big avocado guy, other than enjoying what I can buy at the local grocery store. All I’ve ever done at home is propagate a few avocados from commercially grown seeds.
However, I love following your thread. I find it fascinating all the work you are doing. I live in the same climate as you, so I truly appreciate all your efforts to improve the varieties that can we can grow in our area.
I grew a fairly large number (40ish each) of quince and Pacific crabapple from seed last year. All but 1 quince died from quince rust, and most of the crabapple succumbed to other leaf diseases. I’m hoping the surviving seedlings from last year have a little better disease resistance and are an improvement over their progenitors. I now realize exactly how difficult it is to grow from seed, and the amount of time involved. Especially when you include all the time required for the seed cold stratification process.
After that experience, I now realize growing fruit from seed takes a ton of time, skill, and dedication. I just wanted to thank you for all your efforts on behalf of all of us growers on both sides of the border that may one day benefit from all your breeding efforts.
Keep up the great work @swincher.
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one of the things I’ve done with those type of pot is to snip the bottom out completely, put a piece of burlap where it would be to hold the soil in
then when I’m getting the plant out, there’s nothing for the base roots to grab onto. the entire thing, burlap and all, slides out way easier. still gotta squeeze slightly but it makes the very bottom less of a hassle
edit to add: all the little trees here are doing well. one of the strange large tropical ones has put on a massive flush of red new leaves. this one is experiment for me since I don’t think it will ever get big enough here in the greenhouse to make fruit. it’s nice to see new leaves though, they are incredibly red compared to the others new growth
we had a wind storm that damaged some of the bigger leaves.
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It is pretty remarkable how much variation there is among avocados in leaf flush colors. Here’s a Duke seedling (leaves on lower right-hand side), grafted with Del Rio (left) and Brissago (upper right):
I think Brissago is the most red of any variety I’ve seen, but yours is pretty close.
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Hi Winn
I’m sitting right now here in Brissago and just visited the mother tree of your brissago clones.
It is holding a few hundred already good sized fruits.
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Here along the lake shores are the only places in Switzerland where lemons, washingtonias, butias or bougainvillea spectoglabra can thrive without protection.
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Very nice! Looks like it’s a little further along than my greenhouse graft of it, here’s my only fruit today:
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