Author Topic: Gary Martin describes his incredible breeding efforts & those of his collegues  (Read 835 times)

Mark in Texas

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4220
    • Fredericksburg Texas, (central TX), zone 8a
    • View Profile
Couple of days ago I had posted about where GEM got its name.  Well, guess who caught wind of it!   Gray E. Martin, new member of a Facebook forum called Southern California Backyard Avocado Growers just posted this fascinating expose' of his work.  Wow!  https://www.facebook.com/groups/160547928066846/permalink/800346190753680/?comment_id=800738714047761&reply_comment_id=800744177380548

 
Gray Martin
New Member
  · 12h  ·

Good day to you avocado lovers. I would like to indulge your time with an addendum story to the recent post regarding the naming of GEM avocado. Although, I find personal humor and irony in the tale of naming a variety after my initials, there is a backdrop account that I have been wanting to describe for a very long time, but with my new focus on dragonfruit breeding and production, and my perceived disinterest concerning my experience (no inquiries) these accounts have remained untold... For you to fully understand the full character of twists and turns this tale will take you have to learn a little about tree crop breeding, specifically avocado. You should anthropomorphize (compare to human) everything I describe here: The name of the game in ANY plant breeding scheme is selecting the right parent strains and producing large populations of offspring to select the desired characteristics. With this in mind, and with no inkling of what any parent avocado strain would produce, Dr. B.O. Bergh, UC Riverside Plant Breeder, set about the task of improving upon the commercial 'Fuerte' avocado. Cir 1960. By the time I arrived in 1983 there existed a multitude of "cooperative" growers that grew anywhere from 200-2000 seedling avocado trees from a long list of parent crosses. My work at the time was to assist Bob Whitsell, a Research Associate to Dr. Bergh, in evaluating the resulting fruits from the many fields and many hybrid fruits... The description of this work is another chapter, but is not unlike most plant breeders accounts of selecting for fruit quality flavor, color, size, production, etc. When I arrived the volumes of data Bob Whitsell had produced was painstakingly huge--so huge in fact that I quickly noticed that there was a lengthy lag time between data collection and data evaluation--PhD's are typically busy with publishing, teaching, meeting, etc. So, what happened on several occasions was that by the time a plant of interest appeared on the data sheets things may have drastically changed in the field! We had tree killing frosts in those days. I recall a landslide that took out more than 2000 of our trees. Sometimes growers abandoned the work--as the industry was changing with water and labor costs sky rocketing... In 1981 Dr.Bergh and Bob Whitsell patented and released three green avocado selections: 'Ester' (Ester Whitsell); 'Whitsell'; and 'Gwen' (Gwen Bergh). Dr Bergh in his humility told Bob Whitsell to name any two of the three new green-skinned varieties, and he, Dr Bergh would name the third. History shows that 'Gwen' was the most successful of the three!
Bergh concluded soon after my arrival that what we needed to really take the breeding work forward was to concentrate on what he had determined was the most valuable parent variety in his breeding efforts: Gwen. We advertised for more research cooperators, in turn for growing our seedling plants to maturity we provided free quality seedling plants, and follow-up expert advice from the likes of green-horn like me... Bergh's dream came true when Bob Lamb, a lemon grower from Camarillo said he had a sizeable amount of land that he thought would help us and assist him to preserve his hillside property from erosion, etc. We grew more than 11,000 trees for Mr. Lamb. The first planting was on the best ground in the entire project. It was relatively flat and was perfect for our initial 1,000 trees... This was 'L' block, I think 'L' stood for lemons as it was located behind a 30-acre lemon grove. It was L-block that produced the greatest amount of high-quality fruit. I personally named four and further tested at least that many more... By comparison, in a similar sized plot on the ranch, field five, there was only one seedling that had any commercial quality, 'Sir Prize' (Everything about this variety was surprising so I adjusted the spelling accordingly).
Let's now begin the story... I would drive from Riverside to Camarillo on average twice a week. I would leave late from UC, arrive before noon and work mostly until dark. I did this for years! One of my earliest interests was no. 122 (BL122) from L-block... Several times for several years I would end my day by going to look for Mr. Lamb and update with mostly my enthusiasm! He mostly shrugged at my projections; I think maybe because we had thousands of more trees to evaluate in time, so my early interest in BL122 was a little premature given my "inexperience"... I remember Bob seldom came to visit me in the field, regarding BL122 maybe twice in five years, once by himself and once on tour with our avocado industry. This is not to say Bob was not interested! He was as hopeful as me, but he mostly left me to my devices in the field. One day, in field three, more than a mile from L-block, Bob drove up. Field three was a steep hillside and I would begin my work always from the top where the rows were short and work down. I was mostly down, actually I was 29 rows down... Well when I saw Bob, I set my picking bag down and walked to me him, and he asked enthusiastically about the progress and I told him of some promise and he exclaimed "That's a nice one!"; tree five. I told him that sure a lot of them look pretty, but the testing requirements usually cause 98% of them to fail... He shrugged and we parted. Minutes later I was back to 3-29-5 with my gear. Years later this selection would be branded with MY initials.... And BL122? Well it was honored with the name Lamb for his contribution to avocado research and enhancement. Lamb/Hass maybe my favorite personal success.

Jack, Nipomo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 567
  • San Luis Obispo County, CA zone 9b
    • View Profile
Thanks for posting... I Have GEM, Lamb Hass, And Esther (Ester) and for my location, Lamb Hass and Esther are far better than GEM (sorry Gary).

ScottR

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2222
    • USA,Arroyo Grande,Calif. 93420,zone 9b
    • View Profile
Yes, thanks for posting great information on avocado's Mark!

Mark in Texas

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4220
    • Fredericksburg Texas, (central TX), zone 8a
    • View Profile
Yes, thanks for posting great information on avocado's Mark!

The discussion at the Facebook group is really worth your time.  He's very generous with his time and stories.

BestDay

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 860
  • Long Beach, CA 10B 22
    • View Profile
Great story.

Bill