When hunting for new avocados, Campbell and Ledesma browse such outdoor markets in search of fruits with outstanding physical features. “We basically want trees that have unusual fruit—whether long, big, purple-skinned, without a seed, whatever,” Campbell explains.
If the local market lacks interesting fruits, Campbell and Ledesma may work a trick that has many times drawn great avocados out from hiding: They drive slowly through the dirt streets of a village and, using a bullhorn, invite all the locals to bring their homegrown avocados to a weekend fruit competition, at which the best avocado will win its owner a new bicycle, previously purchased at a local shop on the expedition’s expense account. A small crowd of locals, Campbell says, is almost sure to gather at the appointed place with samples of their backyard fruits.
The next step is tracing an interesting fruit back to the tree from which it was picked—an often challenging feat that may depend on the assistance of a local guide familiar with the region’s geography and its farmers. Even after the collector has pinpointed the location of a tree, another hurdle may be convincing its owner to allow branches to be cut. “They’re often worried that we’re trying to put them out of business or that they’ll lose their income if they give us any wood,” Campbell says. Sometimes, befriending locals in the village bar over several rounds of beer can do the trick. And to quell any lingering suspicions, Campbell usually provides written assurances of royalties on fruit sales should the tree ever become a cultivated commercial variety.
Through their many expeditions and negotiations, Campbell and Ledesma have brought some knockout avocados back to the Fairchild Garden. There is one they found in a backyard garden in Rivas, Nicaragua called the Pura Vida. The Pura Vida bears gourd-shaped fruits averaging 18 inches in length, with some growing as long as 3 feet. Then there’s the Juan Jose, an avocado Campbell and Ledesma found growing on a tree in Costa Rica and whose fruits contain no seed at all—just light, creamy flesh within a soft, green skin. Campbell and Ledesma dubbed another the “car wash avocado” after the rural outpost where they found the tree growing in Guatemala. Similarly, there are two “truck stop avocados,” each collected from a roadside truckers’ café in Guatemala.
