Wanted: Mexican avocado varieties (Mexicola)

[nexxogen]

Hello. I would like to buy a tree, maybe two, of some of the Mexican varieties like Mexicola or Mexicola Grande. I live in southern Europe, in the Mediterranean, and I know that Mexican varieties thrive in this climate, but no one sells avocado trees anywhere near (I guess people have no idea that they can grow them), and even the tropical tree nurseries in other parts of Europe that sell avocado trees, don't have these Mexican varieties. I'm not sure if it's possible to easily and safely transport a tree from the US to here, and if it is, how much would the shipping cost... But I'd like to try and see if it's possible, so if someone has what I'm looking for, please leave me a comment here. Thank you.

[Mark in Texas]

Curious, why Mexican?  Is it for the cold hardiness factor?  If so I'd recommend Winter Mexican and Stewart too.  Brogdon's not bad, or Day.

You could do what I did and source budwood, sticks, from the U. of California at Riverside but FedX charges would likely be outrageous and you have to have rootstock ready for scions shipments from the U.S. in Jan. - Feb.  No plant depositories in your neck of the woods?

I went with a large greenhouse which allows me to grow the finest - Reed, Holiday, Sharwil, Sir Prize, Ardith, Pinkerton, Gwen. Fine but not rated 10+ like the others is Oro Negro.

Stay away from what I call the Tex-Mex varieties - Joey, Wilma, Fantastic.......

Good luck!

[00christian00]

In Italy you can buy avocado grafted on Walter Hole, which is a mexican variety which should be quite hardy, not as much as mexicola but probably near.
I asked the nursery to send some plants with shoots of the rootstock so I can keep the mexican variety too and in case the graft die, I still have a plant.
This is the nursery, I think they ship abroad:
http://www.torrevivai.com/

[nexxogen]

@Mark

Yes, it's precisely because of the cold hardiness factor. Any cold hardy avocado would do really, the problem is the availability. Though, I think a lot of varieties that aren't Mexican could grow here, but I was thinking about cold hardy ones just to be sure. I already have a lot of seedlings that I grew myself that will be planted in the ground some time in the future, but I would be much happier with a proven variety, and if it's cold hardy, all the better.

@Christian

Thank you for the link. I might just decide to go for Hass or some of the other varieties offered there. Aren't those rootstocks from trees that were grown from seed? If that's the case, than maybe it would be cheaper for me to just buy a seed and grow it myself? Though I might end up with something that's not of good quality...

[00christian00]

@Christian

Thank you for the link. I might just decide to go for Hass or some of the other varieties offered there. Aren't those rootstocks from trees that were grown from seed? If that's the case, than maybe it would be cheaper for me to just buy a seed and grow it myself? Though I might end up with something that's not of good quality...

Yes, they are seedling but are already quite developed so maybe you'll have better chance with them.
Mine was one 2m and the other 1.5m, 3 years old. I am trying to combine them in a multi rootstock to speed up everything.
Sure there should be some variability but not much if they use it often as rootstock. The problem is always finding the seed if you want to grow it yourself.
I would advice going for Bacon if you plan to keep the graft too, since Hass is really cold sensitive.
Otherwise in Spain or some Italian nursery you can find avocado on clonal rootstocks of Dusa or Duke 3 which should be quite cold hardy, probably near Mexicola but the quality of the fruit doesn't seem great so you need to hope the graft doesn't die. Instead Walter Hole should have a taste like Mexicola with edible skin and all.

[00christian00]

Here are the plants I bought there. The bacon was bent due to the shipment to fit a 2m box.
I didn't straighten it, because I feared to damage it and because I didn't want it that tall. Hopefully it will branch from the middle.
The Walter Hole is shooting from the roots. Please keep in mind that Walter Hole in this case is like a regular seedling so it should take as much as a seedling to start fruiting, several years. The graft if survive should produce much sooner.

[Mark in Texas]

Here are the plants I bought there. The bacon was bent due to the shipment to fit a 2m box.
I didn't straighten it, because I feared to damage it and because I didn't want it that tall. Hopefully it will branch from the middle.
The Walter Hole is shooting from the roots. Please keep in mind that Walter Hole in this case is like a regular seedling so it should take as much as a seedling to start fruiting, several years. The graft if survive should produce much sooner.

Beautiful garden, looks like around here with the rosemary and such.

I hope you're not planning on keeping those avocado trees that close?  With the exception of a few "dwarfs" they'll need 3 meters in width apart and will eventually grow 10m. tall.

[00christian00]

Beautiful garden, looks like around here with the rosemary and such.

I hope you're not planning on keeping those avocado trees that close?  With the exception of a few "dwarfs" they'll need 3 meters in width apart and will eventually grow 10m. tall.

Thanks! As I said above, I am trying to graft them together to create a multirootstock, don't have space for 2 avocado trees anyway. The photo is outdated, now they are approach grafted, hopefully it will take.

[nexxogen]

@Christian

I've found an interesting video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/e1e7cxoXeJo

This guy lives in a climate that's very similar to where I live, though maybe a tad bit colder. The followup video to that one is what I found to be important:
https://youtu.be/-FSOb4hdF8Q

At the start of the second video, you can see him standing in front of a healthy Hass avocado tree that has good looking fruit on it. I asked him about it in the comments and he said that he never had any problems with it and that it's more cold tolerant than people think. This kinda gave me hope that I could also grow it.

I was thinking about one Hass and one Fuerte so that they could cross-polinate, and Fuerte being more cold tolerant could give me better chances that at least that one survives.

Where in Italy do you live?

[00christian00]

I live in the middle of Italy, where temperature in the winter normally goes to 0/-2 degrees in the coldest months(normally december/january) but this year was exceptionally cold and we went to -5 and even had a late frost in May.
Temperature wise I should be in 9b, but they say our 9b is different cause our winter is longer and with more prolonged low temps, so probably more like 9a or less.
You need to consider also that other than the tree also the fruit need to survive, Hass take almost one year to mature the fruit and a lot can happen in this time.
Bacon is one of the earliest, should take around 8 months. Mexican varieties usually are smaller and take like 6 months.
Can't remember how long Fuerte, but I heard it's not a constant bearer, don't know if it is true.

[nexxogen]

Yeah, there was that cold spur that brought snow to Athens, Greece this year. It's not normal. Where I live, temperatures go below zero maybe 2 or 3 times per year on average, although some years they never go below zero. And I wouldn't really say we have prolonged winters. Frosts that we get sometimes are light and low to the ground - I don't remember ever seeing it on tree leaves. I would say we're kinda at a borderline between 9b and 10a. I know of a guy that has a fruiting avocado tree (don't know the variety) that's like 7 or 8 meters tall, though a couple of times a bit of a cold weather killed the flowers on it.

Thanks for the info on how long it takes for fruit to mature. I will look more into this. I've read that Fuerte bears inconsistently, but I've also read that having a type A avocado (like Hass) near it can improve that a lot.