The Tropical Fruit Forum
Tropical Fruit => Tropical Fruit Discussion => Topic started by: tve on April 22, 2019, 01:09:53 AM
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I'm contemplating growing a handful of Avocado trees under some form of structure to provide a bit of protection from wind, cold, and dryness. What's not clear to me is how much space the trees end up needing in order to produce a reasonable amount of fruit.
I'm in the Santa Barbara mountains, just at the border line where citrus and avocado grows. We have the highest (in altitude) Laurel Soumac around on our property and that's an old indicator plant... I've had 3 AVos in the ground a few years ago and they did not make it. I ended up pulling them back out. The main problem seemed to be a combination of cold nights and strong daily 'sundowner' winds. All the leaves became damaged and in the spring all the trees ended up denuded. I want to try again but provide some protection with a structure. I'm not entirely sure exactly what and I'm trying to figure out whether it's reasonable size-wise...
I found a very encouraging report, which studied per-acre yield of Hass and Lamb Hass using high density planting in San Diego. They planted trees on a 10' x 10' grid and topped them yearly to 7', expecting them to stay ~8' tall. They achieved higher yields than conventional 20' x 20' planting with taller&bigger trees! https://www.californiaavocadogrowers.com/sites/default/files/Avocado-High-Density-research-trial-FINAL%20Report.pdf (https://www.californiaavocadogrowers.com/sites/default/files/Avocado-High-Density-research-trial-FINAL%20Report.pdf)