Author Topic: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado  (Read 29204 times)

fruitlovers

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Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« on: February 28, 2013, 01:59:57 AM »
Here is a photo of my young plant:


This is a type from Guatemala, where it is known as chucte. In Mexico it is known as chinene. Here is some good info on it, including photos of fruits:
http://www.underutilized-species.org/documents/publications/perseaschiedeana.pdf
« Last Edit: February 28, 2013, 06:05:13 AM by fruitlovers »
Oscar

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2013, 10:07:35 AM »
Excellent article link.  I was interested in this species years back due to its reported coconut flavor, but I never got around to growing it.   The USDA in Miami has a specimen http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/acc/display.pl?1471514 and while this link indicates it is available for distribution, I wonder if it is currently so due to the laurel wilt?

Oscar is your plant grafted or is it a seedling?

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2013, 10:22:30 AM »
Another Avocado relative, not often mentioned as a fruit, is cinnamon--- very small, green-fleshed, oily and spicey.
Har

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2013, 04:03:05 PM »
Excellent article link.  I was interested in this species years back due to its reported coconut flavor, but I never got around to growing it.   The USDA in Miami has a specimen http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/acc/display.pl?1471514 and while this link indicates it is available for distribution, I wonder if it is currently so due to the laurel wilt?

Oscar is your plant grafted or is it a seedling?

I grew it from seed. There are no trees here that i know of. May try grafting it later onto avocado, Has anyone tasted fruits from that tree in Miami?
Oscar

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #4 on: February 28, 2013, 04:22:17 PM »
Another Avocado relative, not often mentioned as a fruit, is cinnamon--- very small, green-fleshed, oily and spicey.

Got a cinnamon tree flowering right now. Cinnamon is such a distant relative that it's hard to see it as an avocado relative. Very different from the avocado-like chucte.
Oscar

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #5 on: February 28, 2013, 10:22:54 PM »
Very interesting fruit with some saying it taste like coconut wow, but then with others in mexico thinking it taste like avo-onion? Have you ever tasted this fruit Oscar, any guest on hardiness?

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #6 on: February 28, 2013, 10:28:33 PM »
Very interesting fruit with some saying it taste like coconut wow, but then with others in mexico thinking it taste like avo-onion? Have you ever tasted this fruit Oscar, any guest on hardiness?

Have never seen it or tasted it. Apparently there is a lot of variation from very good to not so good. I hope i got one of the good ones. 8)Did you notice in that article i linked to that they said they sell for higher price than avocados, and many prefer them to Hass?
Oscar

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #7 on: February 28, 2013, 10:34:37 PM »
hey oscar, what are your hours for your nursery? i will be up on the big island from october 17 through 24, i was wanting to come and visit your nursery and check it out and possibly looking for some trees. i am looking for a black sapote, purple star apple, maprang, and some other tree to plant at my grandpas, if you do have are the grafted or air layered? and how much? thanks!

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #8 on: February 28, 2013, 10:37:29 PM »
wait my bad ment march, next month! ;D

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #9 on: February 28, 2013, 10:41:29 PM »
I'm only open by appointment. PM me or email me and will discuss it.
Oscar

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #10 on: February 28, 2013, 10:53:39 PM »
Makes since they would cost more being that there not grown as plentiful as avocados. Very intriguing fruit. 8) 

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #11 on: February 28, 2013, 11:00:02 PM »
Makes since they would cost more being that there not grown as plentiful as avocados. Very intriguing fruit. 8)

Not sure if that's true as most trees grow wild, so there might be more around than you think.
Oscar

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #12 on: September 29, 2013, 09:09:05 PM »
Quote from: Jay Bost
...During a visit to the Chinantla area of Oaxaca, the author was told by numerous farmers that few purposely plant chinene as it takes so long to bear fruit from seed. In fact, local legend has it that one will die when a planted tree begins to bear...

How long exactly does this take to fruit, with most persea americana taking eight to twenty years to bear? We need you around to sell seeds, Oscar, I suggest you find scions for this one. But wow, what a beautiful plant! That is a very interesting document, I downloaded it to my kindle.

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #13 on: September 30, 2013, 12:31:10 AM »
Quote from: Jay Bost
...During a visit to the Chinantla area of Oaxaca, the author was told by numerous farmers that few purposely plant chinene as it takes so long to bear fruit from seed. In fact, local legend has it that one will die when a planted tree begins to bear...

How long exactly does this take to fruit, with most persea americana taking eight to twenty years to bear? We need you around to sell seeds, Oscar, I suggest you find scions for this one. But wow, what a beautiful plant! That is a very interesting document, I downloaded it to my kindle.

This tree is growing full steam ahead. It's about 4x the size now than in my previous photo. So that means i could sell scions to anyone interested. Probably can be grafted fine onto avocado rootstock. I'm guessing at least 10 years before it fruits from seed. My tree is only about 2 years old and is about 7 feet tall now.
BTW, is the tree at USDA Chapman field Miami fruiting? Has anyone got to try the fruit? Is there a tree at F&S?
Oscar

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #14 on: October 30, 2014, 05:36:04 PM »
Hey Oscar, how's yours chucte doing?

I got some budwood from the USDA and I tried grafting it onto avocado seedlings. I'm gonna ask Chris tomorrow if he has a tree at F&S.

Would you be interested to trade some budwood if I get mine to take?
- David Antonio Garcia

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #15 on: October 30, 2014, 05:46:45 PM »
Hey Oscar, how's yours chucte doing?

I got some budwood from the USDA and I tried grafting it onto avocado seedlings. I'm gonna ask Chris tomorrow if he has a tree at F&S.

Would you be interested to trade some budwood if I get mine to take?
Hi David, my chucte is growing very rapidly. I recently topped it to keep it from getting absurdly tall. It's a good idea to graft onto mature avocado rootstock as word has it that seedling chucte takes something like 15+ years to fruit. Yes can trade budwood with you.
Oscar

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #16 on: October 30, 2014, 06:17:19 PM »
Well the accession entry for the USDA says they got the budwood in 1993 from Israel. So my guess is that it had fruited and that its a selection. I actually meant to ask Mike Winterstein if it had fruited for them, but I forgot to ask when I saw him.

If and when my grafts take i'll let you know
- David Antonio Garcia

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #17 on: October 30, 2014, 07:49:42 PM »
Here's a photo i took about 3 months ago. The tree is between 15-20 feet tall now.
Oscar

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #18 on: October 30, 2014, 08:22:24 PM »
Luc share some fruits with me; I have never tasted before; he mention it taste like smoked ham & cream cheese; or foe gras; wathever its spelled; to my sur prise when I taste it it really taste like that! Dif. Than avocado; also notice that this is like durian a hot fruit; and avocado is a cooling fruit; for the body I mean; my seedling us just sprouting
El verde es vida!

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #19 on: October 30, 2014, 09:08:26 PM »
Is yours sourced from a good tree Oscar? I read that they might be able to be crossed with avocado.
- David Antonio Garcia

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #20 on: October 30, 2014, 10:18:15 PM »
Is yours sourced from a good tree Oscar? I read that they might be able to be crossed with avocado.
Supposed to be good. Source tree from Guatemala. So definitely different than what you got. But no guarantee how seedling will turn out. Like with avocado there is going to be variation from seed.
Oscar

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #21 on: October 31, 2014, 12:36:31 PM »
I got really excited about the idea of an Avocado relative that tastes like the cross between and Avocado and a Coconut, so I did a lot of digging into this earlier this year.  There's a guy named Jay Bost at University of Hawaii who went to the native region and visited many small towns asking about it, and wrote a couple of research papers on it.  He also got folks from towns in the region to bring their best fruit for a tasting event.  The thing is, I don't know if anything happened with the seeds from that fruit -- whether they planted seeds from the best fruit or not.

I also asked about the history of the specimens that were in the University of California collection.  There was a small grove of them planted at UCLA in the early 1900s but it seems that they were lost or cut down when UCLA stopped being the main site for the agriculture collections.  I emailed the CRFG list and got (indirectly) a reply from Julie Frink at the UC field station in Irvine, and she said:

"We have an avocado that it called G755C and is an avocado X Schiedeana that was going to be tried as a root rot resistant rootstock.  The tree gets huge, does flower, but hasn't had any fruit, at least in the last 22 years."

I think it'd be exciting to find and propagate two types of schiedeana -- one line that's more of the onion-y flavor and one line that's more of the coconut-y flavor.

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #22 on: January 22, 2017, 06:27:39 AM »
Happy to report that my chucte just started flowering at about 6 years of age, and is about 25 feet tall, even though i topped it once already.
Oscar

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #23 on: January 22, 2017, 10:01:10 AM »
That's pretty intriguing Oscar.  The Oaxaca type seems to come from an area of relatively high elevation.  Are you able to work with material from such elevations or is your material from a lower growing selection?
Saludos, Peter

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Re: Growing Chucte (Persea schiedeana) Relative of Avocado
« Reply #24 on: January 22, 2017, 11:02:04 AM »
Has anyone had any luck grafting this to avocado yet? Sounds like it would work especially if they were able to hybridize it.
-Josh