The Tropical Fruit Forum

Looks like Zutano

I agree: doesn't look like cold damage.

Looks like a watering issue. Could be that the pot dried out too much one time. Or could be that the pot hasn't been watered thoroughly on a consistent basis. Or could be that the water used is high in sodium or chloride. Or it's a combination.

Either way, these watering issues accumulate invisibly for a while (weeks or even months) until they show as leaf burn.

Very cool, Janet. It would be fun to try to get an idea of why certain trees look better than others: deeper soil, lower on slope, in drainages, north aspect, rootstock?

Will you be replanting some new avocados or just reviving some of the existing?

I hear you guys about appreciating pomegranates more and more. I used to take them for granted because they are so easy to grow. But this time of year when they're starting to split open on the tree and so full-flavored I actually crave them.

Here's a bad (but very short!) video of how I like to open pomegranates: https://youtu.be/38UpTltg2Co

I always just eat them out in the yard though. So I don't mind it being a bit messy.

Thanks for the heads up.

Definitely second the idea of using a Bacon tree to graft other varieties onto. That's a great way to use the nice Bacon tree structure.

Thanks for posting this, Brad.

My experience is the same as Oolie's, in terms of taste and color in summer passionfruit compared to other seasons.

You might be interested in some of the observations of Bob Bergh, who ran the avocado breeding program of the University of California for decades. (The first paragraph deals with speeding up the fruit production of seedlings, and the second paragraph is about how many years it usually takes for seedlings to produce.)

"Perhaps the greatest problem of the avocado breeder is the length of time required, in conjunction with the large amount of space required. There are 2 ways that we are going at this problem of shortening the juvenility stage. One is to graft the seedlings onto large plants. This is an idea that we thought about vaguely and I finally was stimulated to try in a visit to Israel 2 years ago when I saw it in operation there. Often you can get fruiting the year after you graft or at least 2 years afterwards.

"The other way is to breed for more precocious seedlings. The new 'Pinkerton' variety is astonishingly precocious for us and it will be the basis of this precocity breeding. In California we say that the earliest cultivars will come into production in maybe 3 years with a few fruits and more in the fourth and fifth years. Seedlings come in maybe the fifth or sixth year and more in the eighth and ninth year. After 10 years we drop it. Seedlings of 'Pinkerton' have the remarkable ability to start bearing the second year from planting as seedlings. The little seedling is seemingly barely up, as we don't get as much growth in 2 years in California as in Florida or the more tropical areas, and can have maybe 20 or 30 fruits on it. This is just turning up now. The first fruiting is this year because we didn't know about the 'Pinkerton' until 2 years ago."

This is taken from: http://www.avocadosource.com/Journals/ITFSC/PROC_1976_PG_36-42.pdf

Which tests are those? Maybe they're more recent than what I've seen.

I looked into the leafminer and imidacloprid issue some years ago because I was sick of one of my citrus trees getting attacked so badly. I wrote about it here: http://gregalder.com/yardposts/dont-spray-for-citrus-leafminers/

But the essence is that I read that soil drenches are said to translocate into flowers and harm bees. The University of California's webpage for imidacloprid says this: "Imidacloprid applied as a soil treatment can move up into flowers to injure or kill bees, other pollinators and beneficial insects." (The page: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/TOOLS/PNAI/pnaishow.php?id=42)

But maybe I'm not understanding it correctly, or maybe it's wrong or outdated?

Low of 28 for me too. Plenty of frost. Some leaf damage on bananas and new flush of avocados.

I don't have an answer, but as commiseration: Many of my citrus trees look most yellow this time of year, every year. I'm in SD County and I also mulch most of my trees heavily with wood chips. I no longer worry about it because they always green up well in spring and produce fine. Maybe your Page will too, on its own.

Absolutely. That's not what I meant to imply. Only that this isn't the first time that antibiotics are being approved for use on tree crops. Previous administrations/EPAs approved the use on apples and pears long ago (I don't recall which or exactly when).

Matt,
If your goal is a Hass-like avocado and you want to keep the tree to 15 feet, maybe you should just plant a Hass. I have a Hass that I keep to 15 feet, and it's easily done. I'm certain you can manage it.