The great Seattle cold-hardy avocado trial

It doesn’t matter now, it’s unlikely I will ever grow fruit in S. CA again. I will say I never saw any avocado trees growing near Topanga creek half way up the canyon or any point past the strong ocean influence that prevented the frosts. A quick walk up the hill from my father’s property and the trees did fine. Same deal with citrus.

I didn’t know what I now do, of course, and info was much harder to come by. I didn’t consider the affects of the steep canyon walls combined with a lot of shade cast by 90 ft tall eucalyptus trees. I always assumed it was the fairly frequent frosts with the cold settling right where we were. The difference was really amazing just a short distance uphill.

Could be Mexicola in poorer soil, or could be seedling trees. There are a few old/rare named cultivars that look like that, but not too many. “Puebla” is often a little more round than Mexicola, for example:

But my guess would be seed-grown trees.

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So do you still live in SoCal? There are many drawbacks in terms of population density, but the growing conditions are hard to beat.

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I found out about this tree growing in Modesto. It’s a cold tolerant avocado called a Pueblo, and it has an edible skin. Evidently people can and often do eat them like apples. The tree is massive, and if it will grow to 40 feet tall in Modesto, you know it will flourish in Livermore. I bet you could get cuttings from this tree. Looks pretty accessible.

https://amp.modbee.com/opinion/garth-stapley/article258424913.html

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Puebla (the same type that I linked above) is available from the UC collection near Los Angeles. There’s no online ordering system and you have to be able to pick the scions up in Riverside, but it went really smoothly when I did it a few months ago.

Mexicola also has edible skin, as do many (most?) Mexican cultivars, and I have eaten Mexicola that way. The skin adds a nice flavor.

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HOLY $HIT that tree is crazy. I wonder if they would spare a cutting of this super rare Avocado?
Damn!

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I bet they would. Most people are super chill about that stuff. I think it would be awesome to have a cutting from that tree. Have a little bit of California history growing in your orchard. Seems like people really like that variety. My buddy from central Mexico says the hillside near where he grew up had dozens of those trees.

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If not, I am planning to get another batch of scions of various historical cultivars from UC next winter, including Puebla, so I’d be happy to get extras and share with anyone interested.

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That was my boyhood home and my first fruit tree was an apricot that came with the house. It gave us wonderful fruit even before I learned to prune it and pruning was all I had to do besides giving it water. I moved to NY half a life ago but was a grower in many soils in CA before I left. My last CA house was in Pt Dume in Malibu on a cliff overlooking nothing but ocean and beach. Only place with a yard I ever lived where I didn’t plant a fruit tree. I was planting elsewhere.

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That would be great!

LA to NY is quite a shift. Are you in NYC or did you do upstate? I’ve always been amazed at the little micro gardens people are able to grow in NYC. I once met a guy in the train going from Albany down to the city and he had pics of his little garden in Manhattan. It was on this little bite of land between two very large buildings. Somehow he managed to get the lost out of that little unlikely spot.

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Do you have a line on who to contact in order to pick up scions? Riverside is accessible when I’m visiting parents.

Search pulled up this list but don’t see a description of that service: Avocado Varieties

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I am 45 miles north of NYC on 3 acres of bearing age fruit tree nursery and extensive orchard and gardens. Message me and I will tell you about it if you like.

You’re right, they don’t seem to publicize it, but Eric Focht helped me with my request, and I met him on the UC Riverside campus to pick up the order. His contact info is on another part of that website:

They requested a nominal donation to the department, which seemed very fair. My order was on the small side, I’m not sure how big of a request they’d be able to handle.

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Looking forward to the results of these experiments! Avocado varieties other than Hass seem to be impossible to find in Canada, but our climate here in Vancouver is very similar to Seattle.

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Vancouver Island has some excellent growing conditions for the region. Bob Duncan has avocados growing near Saanich, along with all his other citrus goodies. Besides the avocado and citrus he grows olives, sapote, Chilean guava, pineapple guava (feijoa), figs, furry kiwi, citrus, and pomegranate.

There’s also a botanical garden that specializes in subtropical specimens associated with Mediterranean gardens. Of course Vancouver Island has some distinct Mediterranean characteristics so it’s not too much of a stretch. They have a phenomenal cactus and succulent collection.

I’m down in the Willamette Valley so luckily close enough to visit sometimes. I think Vancouver Island is one of the jewels of this planet.

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The third multi-graft tree went in the ground in the greenhouse a couple weeks ago. The Ganter graft is recent and replaced a failed graft in the same spot:

Edit: Accidentally posted this before I was finished drafting it, so apologies for the big edit.

The slowpoke Duke seedlings that put out taproots in November but spent all winter with no leaves are for the most part finally growing shoots:

The fastest of the February-harvested Royal-Wright seeds (center) is already surpassing the slowest of the October-harvested Duke seeds:

The second half of my Bacon seeds this year are overdue for potting up, but I’ve been too busy with the day job and baby lately, so they’ve been neglected:

The outside crew of potted up new seedlings like to huddle under the glass table to minimize sunburns, and have already come through their first mild frost (31.4°F) with flying colors:

Those are a mixture of Aravaipa, Duke, and Mexicola seedlings from the fall season, about a third of the total seedlings from that batch. A few went in the ground, and a few are less vigorous and still in their 1 gal pots in the greenhouse. Here’s a Duke seedling in the ground, which has gotten a little sunburned even though it was hardened off carefully:

After some success with rooting cuttings, I’m doing a lot more of that. Since there’s typically fairly low success rates, I’m doing communal pots and removing cuttings that wilt:

Here’s a cutting from a Bacon seedling that was cut in August and is starting a spring flush:

I’ve started planting out trees, perhaps a little prematurely, but the ones that went out early last year seemed to be sturdier by the end of the season, so it seems better to err on the early side.

I’m sure there’s more stuff I’m missing, but the project continues.

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Looking good!
I’ve read good things on Duke.
I’m surprised your root cuttings are having a fairly high success rate.

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The success rate has been fairly low, but not terrible. A cutting removed from a seedling rootstock when grafting onto it has the highest success rate. One such rooted clone of a rootstock even appears to have survived the winter in a pot outdoors, with a living bud at ground level:

Old studies on rooting avocados mostly concluded that it’s not difficult for Mexican-race avocados, but takes 6+ months to root and another 6+ months to start growing more vigorously.

Those same studies showed that Guatemalan and West Indies types have much lower success rates for rooting. I mentioned both studies way up in this thread, here:

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Ahh, makes sense. I tried rooting them, but never waited 6 months. I missed your previous articles. Thanks!

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