Last October, I had the chance to visit the oldest Carmen avocado tree in the USA, and I thought I would come away with a better understanding of the variety. The tree had a metal USDA tag still attached to it, from when it was held in quarantine after the budwood had been brought up from Mexico. I assessed the shape and growth pattern of the 30-year old tree’s canopy, I looked at the fruit hanging on it, I noted the flowers or lack thereof. Yet I remained unsettled about how this quirky avocado variety worked.

In that moment, I also recognized that I would never fully understand Carmen so it was time to write this profile.

Carmen fruit

Carmen avocados look like Hass avocados, pretty much (see above); and Carmens taste like Hass, pretty much. I really like Hass, so in my view, this means that Carmens too are among the most delicious of all avocados.

But I say “pretty much” because there are situations where Carmen avocados differ from Hass in their appearance and taste, and this is related to the Carmen tree’s peculiar flowering habit.

Carmen flowering

Most avocado trees flower once per year, and they do so in the spring. Not Carmen. Carmen trees can flower during multiple seasons of the year.

Carmen avocados that start to grow in seasons other than spring look different. They are usually rounder, sometimes smoother skinned, slightly smaller, and sometimes more scarred from thrips insects.

Flowers during seasons other than spring are called “off bloom.” In my observations, Carmen trees growing close to the ocean can have this off bloom.

Here are locations where I’ve seen Carmen trees having off bloom: Ventura, Santa Paula, La Selva Beach, San Jose, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Corona Del Mar, and Chula Vista. None are more than a dozen miles from the ocean.

Carmen trees that I’ve seen farther inland do not consistently have off bloom, and some never do.

However, even inland Carmen trees will usually flower at least a little earlier than adjacent Hass trees.

Because of this slightly earlier bloom on inland (and all) Carmen trees, the fruit usually taste a little richer earlier in the year compared to Hass trees in the same location.

Why are Carmen avocados so similar to Hass, and why do I keep comparing them to Hass? Because Carmen is a Hass sport, a natural mutation found on a Hass tree. So I feel like my main job here is to distinguish the two and explain why some people choose to grow Carmen over Hass.

But before going forward and talking about a few more tree characteristics, let’s go back in time. 

Carmen history

The mother Carmen tree was discovered in about 1986 in the Basilia Valley near Uruapan, Mexico, and a farmer named Carlos Mendez began observing it. It was noticed that the tree had a robust early flowering compared to surrounding Hass trees and hence had a more substantial early crop.

Through taking branches from this tree and grafting them to make new trees it was seen that the mother Carmen tree was truly distinct, as the new trees also exhibited the mother’s behavior.

Mendez began propagating Carmen trees in abundance because their early crop often fetched a high price.

In 1996-1997, in collaboration with Brokaw Nursery in Ventura County, California, the Carmen avocado variety was imported into the US and a patent application was filed. In the patent, the variety is referred to as “Mendez No. 1,” and in Mexico it is still referred to as Mendez, as in, “the Mendez type of Hass.” But for introduction to California and the rest of the world, a different name was chosen and trademarked: “Hass Carmen.” Nevertheless, just as no one in Mexico calls it “Mendez No. 1,” no one in California calls it “Hass Carmen.” It’s referred to simply as Carmen.

The oldest Carmen tree that I saw last October was made from the budwood imported in the late 1990s and is located at the Brokaws’ Cheravo Ranch in Santa Paula.

From that point, Brokaw Nursery began testing Carmen trees and propagating the variety for growers in California. 

Carmen tree growth

Carmen avocado trees show a couple of other small differences from Hass besides the flowering behavior. One is that Carmen canopies often look more compact. 

This is partly due to Carmen’s fall-season shoot growth having many lateral branches.

Also distinguishing it from Hass, Carmen’s fall growth has odd, fattened stems. They look as if they’re being prevented from elongating so they swell.

But just as the off-season flowering of Carmen happens more on the trees near the coast, I’ve noticed that off-season and bushy vegetative growth is also more often a feature of Carmen trees near the coast.

(For more on these characteristics, see Mary Lu Arpaia’s presentation on Carmen for the California Avocado Society seminar on February 2021 at 1:32.)

Precocity

Carmen avocado trees that I’ve seen seem slightly more precocious compared to Hass. In other words, the trees will flower at a younger age and therefore potentially fruit more at a younger age.

There is an ongoing University of California trial in Somis, Ventura County, comparing multiple avocado varieties. When I visited in 2019, I received a handout of yield data which showed that the first year’s yields (2015) counted GEM at an average of 7.5 kilograms per tree; Reed, Lamb, and Carmen at about 4 kg/tree; and Hass at about 2 kg/tree.

Precocity can also manifest on older trees as a quicker return to fruiting after pruning. You can prune a Carmen tree this year and it will do more flowering next year compared to a Hass that is similarly pruned. This is an advantage if you want to keep a tree small and need to prune it yearly, whether because you have a small yard or want to grow in a high-density commercial grove.

Carmen in the heat and cold

In the patent, it is claimed that in Mexico, Carmen demonstrated greater frost tolerance than Hass. However, I have seen no such evidence in my yard or elsewhere in California.

How about heat tolerance? I have seen Carmen trees doing well in hot locations, but not obviously better than nearby Hass.

Carmen harvest season

The Hass harvest season runs from about March through June in most Southern California locations. Comparatively, Carmen’s main harvest season for a tree in an inland location is the same in length but it can start a tad earlier.

For locations near the beach, Carmen usually has two main harvest seasons: one about the same time as Hass (March through June) and one in the fall from the previous year’s off bloom (harvested mostly in November and December).

The size of each harvest varies according to how many flowers there were and how good the weather was for pollination. The UC trial in Somis has found that Carmen trees there have produced about the same amount of fruit in both seasons, but I know other Carmen trees that have varying amounts of fruit to harvest at different times of year. This goes to say that it is only a wish to think that a single Carmen tree will offer an even supply of avocados throughout the year, although one could have at least something to pick in every season.

Is Carmen a fit for your yard?

My favorite Carmen tree, and one of my favorite avocado trees in the world, is this one in the yard of my friends Ellen and Freddy:

I’ve never seen the tree sleep. It incessantly grows, flowers, and fruits – a lot. This tree’s location is near Santa Cruz, less than a mile from the ocean.

If you live near enough to the ocean, you can expect a Carmen tree to be precocious and active, producing more than one crop per year, at least in some years, possibly approaching the performance of Ellen and Freddy’s tree.

If you live farther inland, who knows how a Carmen tree will behave in your yard? Beyond about twenty miles from the ocean, I would not expect a Carmen tree to act much differently from a Hass, in terms of flowering and harvest seasons.

So is a Carmen avocado tree a good fit for your yard? It depends on what you want and where you’re planting it. 

Carmen is possibly a superior choice for an inland gardener or farmer who intends to plant the tree in a small space or multiple trees in high density and therefore need to prune at least once each year. The Carmen tree could then average a slightly higher yield compared to Hass because of its precocity.

But I imagine that Carmen would be most attractive and suitable for a gardener within a dozen miles of the ocean with space for only one tree. In this scenario, the tree is likely to have at least a few avocados to harvest during more months of the year than any other variety.

I like that scenario, but I still don’t feel like I understand Carmen well enough to say exactly when and where it will happen. Even on that oldest Carmen tree in the USA, last October it had a main crop but no off-bloom crop and no flowers showing. What a quirky variety, this Carmen.

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