Does anis like scent in avocado leaves indicate cold hardiness?

[lajos93]

I have a few seedlings from store bought avocadoes and some of them have features like

• anis smelling leaves
• and the newly emerging ones are red colored

The weird thnig is that as far as I know there arent many actually Mexican avocadoes in the store yet these definitely inidicate Mexican origins

So how can this be? Is this even a legit claim that red and anis smelling leaves are an indication of cold hardiness/Mexican origin?

[Oolie]

You may want moderators to move this post out of the sales section and into the correct section.

Anise smelling leaves are indicative of some Mexican landrace parentage, while the red leaves are more typical of Guatemalan landrace parentage. That said most avocadoes in stores are Hass, a hybrid of both types.

The claim is illegitimate.

The only way to judge is to subject the trees to cold and see which lives.

[pagnr]

Not sure if that is what you mean, but fruit don't have to be imported from Mexico to be 'Mexican' variety.
Many of the commercial Avocado varieties grown in USA and Australia are Mexican Guatemalan hybrids, a few are Mexican.
Since you are growing seedlings there will be slight variation in what you get in the seedlings,
including the possibility of pollination from another Avocado variety to get fruit set.
So you are rolling a few different dice at the same time with those seed, ie hybrid variety plus pollination.
There is a reasonable chance to get Mexican genes for Anise in the seedlings, depending on the orchard set up.

I once collected seeds from a mixed Avocado collection plantation,
for a person who wanted to grow Anise scented Avocado leaves for Mexican cooking.
From what I remember, I sent seed from the Anise scented leaved variety trees.
Some seedlings turned out better than others for Anise scent, but not the one I thought it would be ( the Mexican variety ).

[Flgarden]

I have read the same about anise smell. Mexican or mexican hybrid avocados should have that smell and usually they are cold hardy. I tested Poncho leaves, very strong anise  smell.
Ana

[pagnr]

Figarden said "I have a few seedlings from store bought avocadoes and some of them have features like
anis smelling leaves and the newly emerging ones are red coloured"

Ollie said  "That said most avocadoes in stores are Hass, a hybrid of both types."

Now I am wondering if your Avocado seedlings are from the same or different store bought fruit varieties ?
ps There are a few "Hass" type varieties or clones available now, so it might be hard to tell.

[lajos93]

Yes the post should be move into a different sub

Oolie: How cold are we talking, minus 1,-2 will do, or -4,-5 Celsius ?

[Bobooshki]

I have a large Mexicola tree, which is extremely cold hardy and it has a very strong smell of anise. Even the avocado skin tastes like it

[lajos93]

Bobooski, what was the coldest it has taken with/without damage?

[Tropical Sunshine]

Although genetic can play an important role in cold hardiness, it is not everything.
Other factors such as age of the tree, sufficient nutrition, protection (from pest, disease, and weather), environmental condition (humidity and heat index), all these factors can affect a plant’s chance of survival during a hard freeze. In general, the better you take care of your tree during the growing season, the better it is able to fend off adverse weather.

[Bobooshki]

Not too cold as I’m in 9b. Coldest I’ve seen here has been 27 degrees. Took that like a champ - no damage whatsoever. No discoloration or leaf burn….nothing at all

[drymifolia]

The weird thnig is that as far as I know there arent many actually Mexican avocadoes in the store yet these definitely inidicate Mexican origins

Since you are in Hungary, you likely are getting avocados from places like Spain, Israel, South Africa, etc., right? In some of those areas, varieties other than Hass still have a market share. Did you take any photos of the fruit? It's possible someone was commercially growing Duke7 or some other more purely Mexican-race avocado cultivar.

I've grown many dozens of Hass seedlings and never noticed the anise scent, but I think in California and Mexico pollenizers are usually Bacon (minimal or no anise scent) or Fuerte (slight anise scent), rather than any strongly scented Mexican-race avocados.

By contrast, all the seedlings of Duke, Mexicola, and Mexicola Grande that I've grown had strongly scented leaves.

And to answer the question about hardiness, seedlings with strongly scented leaves have been much more likely to survive winter temperatures, though this coming winter will be a bigger sample size than last year, and next year will be even better.

But as others noted, the scent does not guarantee hardiness. I've had scented seedlings that melt at the first frost, and a few seedlings (mostly of Bacon) without any scent that survived impressive winter lows as first-year seedlings.

[lajos93]

drymifolia

Yes, we'll see what happens this winter, just built a walipini, got this 3m tall seedling avocado tree, with a slightly brownish bark that I just planted 3 weeks ago, so hopefully it will be able to take minus 1-2

BTW you could totally grow avocadoes outside in Zone 8B if you protect them the first 1-2 winter, Lila for example , heck I might even try it as in the last 5-7 years we only had Zone 8 winters

[drymifolia]

BTW you could totally grow avocadoes outside in Zone 8B if you protect them the first 1-2 winter, Lila for example , heck I might even try it as in the last 5-7 years we only had Zone 8 winters

I like your optimism! But there are many different types of zone 8b, and our version is particularly cool and wet, so I don't think there's any guarantee even the hardiest cultivars can grow unprotected here.

I've currently got ~20 cultivars of allegedly hardy avocados grafted in my greenhouse and ~50 seedlings (some in the ground, mostly potted). Based on my first outdoor winter of this trial I'm very skeptical of the claims of hardiness made by certain breeders and nurseries. None of the grafted trees survived above the graft in our -8.9°C freeze last winter, and less than a third of the trees even re-grew from their roots.

I'll be distributing dozens of second-year seedlings to members of my project next spring, and dozens more every year after that, so we should have pretty good data on real cold hardiness over the coming years.

[lajos93]

I think what those numbers mean when the tree is really mature and have a thick ass bark not exactly a pencil size, more like handball diameter.. so it might even be 5+ years old until it gets there

What I plan to do is a long term project, where the tree possibly will have to have some protection every winter even when mature, but when it finally is mature the chances of it completely dying is quite low, it might take some serious damage at lower temps but it wouldnt die I guess

Any way for now i'll stick to the one I got in my GH as well

Good luck, keep pushing