by Greg Alder | Feb 9, 2024 | Avocados |
The spring of 2023 in California was abnormally cool, making avocado thrips abnormally populous. Thrips are tiny insects that chew on avocado fruit as the fruit is small, and this chewing becomes brown scarring. The thrips damage can result in large patches that some...
by Greg Alder | Jan 19, 2024 | Avocados |
You and I, we go to the nursery and buy our avocado trees. Not Brad. He is so well-rounded in avocado growing skills and knowledge that he has developed a new grove of hundreds of avocado trees from scratch. Starting from seed Brad planted over 200 avocado seeds,...
by Greg Alder | Jan 5, 2024 | Avocados |
Most avocado trees make plenty of fruit without other types of avocado trees nearby — when the weather is good. But the spring of 2023 was cool, and that is not good for pollination. (The photo above shows GEM avocado trees flowering during yet another foggy day...
by Greg Alder | Jan 4, 2024 | Avocados |
In the spring of 2023, many avocado trees throughout California had a superbloom. During that period I watched the avocados on trees with lots of flowers mature rapidly alongside the emerging flowers and even start dropping to the ground in some cases. For example,...
by Greg Alder | Dec 15, 2023 | Avocados |
It feels like a rain forest under them. In 1908, Henry Huntington, the railroad magnate, had avocado trees grown from seed and planted by the hundreds on his property near Pasadena, in what became known as the first commercial avocado orchard in California. Some...
by Greg Alder | Nov 24, 2023 | Avocados |
“Always do what’s best for the tree,” says an avocado farmer that I respect. What he means is, when deciding whether to do something to the tree — water or stake or whitewash or shade or prune — base your decision on the answer to just...
by Greg Alder | Nov 3, 2023 | Avocados |
Thille is the low-pro link between numerous famous avocado varieties. Even though Thille trees barely exist anymore, and not many were grown in the first place, it is the daughter of Hass, the mother of Gwen, and the grandmother of Lamb, GEM, and the new Luna. So the...
by Greg Alder | Oct 25, 2023 | Avocados |
If avocados have a royal family, this is it: Hass and its heirs. Take a look at the family’s most prominent members, as well as some lesser known relatives. Where and when were they born? Who first grew them? Is there a next generation on the way? I hope you...
by Greg Alder | Oct 20, 2023 | Avocados |
From sunrise to sunset on October 14, it was avocados for me. I was touring groves, talking to farmers and researchers, stuffing my head with more than I could process. But I took photos. And here I share some with you. My morning began with an offshore breeze at...
by Greg Alder | Oct 12, 2023 | Avocados |
In 1916, not long after graduating from Pasadena High School, Wilson Popenoe headed south to explore the highlands of Guatemala on horseback for avocados to bring back to growers in California. He rode over three thousand miles, he tasted a thousand different...
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