Mexicola flowering

[850FL]

Is it normal for a Mexicola grande to start flowering this time of year in north Florida? I’ve also had a Carrie mango do this..outside..  in mid-winter.. It hasn’t frosted a whole lot this year but it also has not been very warm the past 2 months either..

All apical buds pushing flowers..

[Vernmented]

Totally normal

[850FL]

Oh okay just thought they would flower after winter.

[CTMIAMI]

Fruit is also early by Florida standards

[pineislander]

It is my earliest avocado to flower and harvest in zone 10b/11 SWFL. Ripening in July, doesn't hold on the tree, they drop off when ripe. Small fruit, eat the skin it is about as thick as eggplant. Mine have buds pushing a little.

[bsbullie]

It is my earliest avocado to flower and harvest in zone 10b/11 SWFL. Ripening in July, doesn't hold on the tree, they drop off when ripe. Small fruit, eat the skin it is about as thick as eggplant. Mine have buds pushing a little.

Eating cooked eggplant skin is like eating plastic.  Cant see eating avocado skin...

[Squam256]

The skin on Mexicola Grande is thin like a stone fruit. I don’t usually bother trying to peel them.

[850FL]

According to some guy Craig hepford these Mexican avocados don’t even need separate a/b pollinators this far north. Their hermaphroditic stages interlap or something like that..

[850FL]

How does the anise flavor of the skin mix with the pulp on a raw fruit? I much prefer my avocados salted so does the skin flavor mixture go well with salt?

[spaugh]

Mex grande is mediocre at best.  Taste is ok but the thin skin and sticky seed coat suck.  They drop off the tree if you stare at them too long also. 

[FV Fruit Freak]

Hey Brad, have you heard of the dorado variety? It’s a Mexican type.

[spaugh]

Never heard of it.  The UC website has a pretty extwnsive list of cultivars in a searchable database though.  You could look it up. 

My mexican avocados are blooming now too.  I saw some hass trees in peoples yards in town and they were in full bloom already.  Peaches are blooming here now also.  It was 90 here the last couple days. 

[pineislander]

It is my earliest avocado to flower and harvest in zone 10b/11 SWFL. Ripening in July, doesn't hold on the tree, they drop off when ripe. Small fruit, eat the skin it is about as thick as eggplant. Mine have buds pushing a little.

Eating cooked eggplant skin is like eating plastic.  Cant see eating avocado skin...

You are eating the wrong kind of eggplant grown too long like Black Beauty. Try some nice Asian or Indian types picked young and fresh, lots of antioxidants in vegetable skins of dark colors. Mexicola skin is actually good, but I also enjoy Jaboticaba skin which may be the most nutritious part.

[Epicatt2]

Just curious but is 'Mexicola Grande' one of those alternate bearers, flowering every year but setting fruit only every other year?  Or maybe it is just my tree that's acting that way, for whatever reason.

Should I do anything special while my tree is budding out its flowers, or during flowering to ensure a good fruitset?

I know that 'Mexicola Grande' si supposed to be self-fertile.

Fingers X-ed!

Paul M.
==

[pineislander]

I have 3 trees and they have been steady bearers.

[Epicatt2]

I have 3 trees and they have been steady bearers.

Thanks for that info, pineislander.

So I wonder maybe that it's something that I'm not providing my 'Mexicola Grande' with while it's in flower.

Water?  (The soil in my yard is sandy and drains quickly.)  Fertilizer?  Not sure what might be needed to provide.

At about 17 feet tall now and 3-1/2 years in the ground it should be old / strong enough to hold fruit, ja?

Paul M.
==

[pineislander]

Mine are in full sand and on a mounded bed, when I bought the place they were in sad shape. Placed solid logs under all the trees and covered them deeply with mulch, added gypsum as sheetrock scraps, then fertilized. The next year they started growing and I pruned hard. They began to bear after that. The row has 4 varieties for pollination.