Girdling is a technique that can be used to manipulate the growth, flowering, and fruiting of an avocado tree. I use it mostly to make a tree fruit every year rather than every other year.
Various tools and versions of the technique have been developed by avocado growers over the years, and I’ve tried many of them. I continue to learn and experiment, but this is how I have settled on making my girdling cuts over the past few years while achieving the intended results:
For details on the how, when, and why of girdling avocados, head over to my post, “Girdling avocado trees for consistent fruiting.”
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I found this to be educational and very interesting. Wish I had avocado trees!
Thank you for the instruction on Girdling.
Two of my trees, (one hass) and the other a (furete).
The older furete has never had a year off of producing, until
this last season. Two fruit came on. Not sure if it’s lack of pollenizations
this year, or if the tree was just tired.
The one fruit, which I just picked, was huge. Still waiting to see how the
flavor is.
The trees have been stunted after those high temperatures a few years ago,
when the younger trees took a huge hit and dropped most of their leaves and
there was no harvesting for about 3 years.
I don’t think I want to try girlding the ones that were it hardest by the high heat
from a few years ago.
If the one (8 year old tree), doesn’t produce more than 10 fruit this season, I
may have to cut it down. Could be the soil under it has a problem.
Call me crazy, but the idea of girdling my trees hurts. I rather let Nature take its course. (It helps to have a few Gem and Gwen trees and maybe a Carman). Seems like forcing a tree to produce when it naturally wouldn’t might shorten the production life? For all i know, could be the other way around. Either way interesting subject.
i girdled my Holiday approximately 15 years ago and it has flourished ever since!
Looks like a Trick to get more consistent Treats!