It’s exciting to see a small avocado tree flower and set fruit. But should you allow it?
My rule of thumb is to remove all avocados from a tree until it’s nearly as tall as me.
What this means is that if you’ve recently planted an avocado tree from a sleeve or five-gallon container, then it’s almost surely too small to carry fruit. If, on the other hand, you’ve recently planted a 15-gallon avocado tree, then it may or may not be ready to carry fruit. (If it’s ready, then it’s probably only ready to carry a few at the most.)
I’ve seen what happens when you let small avocado trees carry fruit. I’ve allowed it myself, and I’ve seen it done by others. It’s almost always regretted.
There are two main problems encountered if you let a small avocado tree hold fruit. The first is that the fruit often gets sunburned because the little tree doesn’t have enough foliage to shade it. The second is that the tree spends a lot of energy growing that fruit and doesn’t have much leftover to grow new branches and leaves.
But I’m growing this tree for the fruit not the leaves, you might say. That being the case, you’d rather sacrifice the one or two avocados that a small tree might be able to handle so that it puts on a lot of leaf and shoot growth and reaches the size to where it can handle a dozen avocados next year. Let it hold a couple avocados this year and it will still be so small next year that it can again not handle more than a few.
One reasonable exception is if your tree is of a variety that is new to you. In that case, you’re so eager to taste the fruit for the first time, and it might be acceptable to let a small tree hold one or two avocados. But watch the tree’s growth through summer. If it’s not growing many new leaves during the summer flush, which usually occurs sometime in July, then remove that fruit impediment.
A video showing some examples from my yard of avocado trees that are too small or big enough to hold their first crops:
When to remove the avocados?
If you’ve decided that the tree is too small to carry a crop, then you might as well remove the avocados as soon as possible — even before they’ve been pollinated and become fruit, while they’re still flowers.
The reason that I sometimes don’t remove flowers on certain small trees is because I’m looking to learn about their flowering and fruitset behavior. (A or B type? Sets fruit without a pollenizer nearby?)
Often, a small tree will self-thin to a large degree, possibly even shedding all small fruit and making it unnecessary for you to remove them. It might set a dozen fruitlets, for example, only to drop them all by mid-July. You can wait for that, but removing the small fruit even earlier will only turn the tree’s energy to leaf and shoot growth earlier.
Naturally, an avocado tree that grows from a seed will not produce fruit until it has a canopy that is far larger than those sold in typical five-gallon containers. These ungrafted, seedling trees know that they need many leaves and strong branches to develop and support avocado fruit.
On the other hand, unnatural, small grafted trees sometimes need our intervention so that they don’t hurt themselves through fruiting too much too early.
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I left only one fruit on my last years planted: #5 GEM, both are doing well. Left all on my #15 Stewart, and it dropped all but two, and my #15 Reed has 5. Both trees growing well. Very much like your video. Looking forward to tasting these three as never have. Getting first harvest off our Holiday, very good.? thx for all the videos.
I’ve got ones that I’ve just threw in the compost heap n they’ve developed a secondary shoot coming out of the seed…should I cut that off or “let it be”…it’s above fence height
Hi! I have a small (approx. 4 feet tall ) Zutano avocado tree and it is losing all the leaves, the leaves that are left have brown points and edges. There are a few small fruits growing, it is in full sun all day, any help is very much appreciated.
Hi Maureen,
Based on that description I’d guess the tree has not been getting enough water — or has not been getting water often enough.
Just read your blog on removing fruit off baby avo trees until the trees are more mature . Do we remove the branch the fruit is on or just strip the fruit off leaving the branch?
Good question, Mary. It’s safest to just snap the little fruit off. Giving it a twist or spin within your fingers usually works. Leave the branch alone.
I have a 3yr old Hass. Tree is approximately 7ft tall. Last year tree produced 7 or 8 small avocados. Tree grew well over winter and spring. The tree at this point has no flowers or fruit. Is this normal? I was looking forward for more fruit this year. Puzzled.
What they don’t tell you about Hass is that it can be alternating bearing. Two years ago my young tree had 60 fruits, last year only one with little flowering,, this year 50+. Thus the importance of having GEM or Carmen for the lean Hass years. Best of luck.
Hi Dave,
Yes, this is normal — or at least not entirely abnormal. All avocado trees of all varieties fluctuate in their fruit production each year, and sometimes trees go from having fruit one year to having none the next. You can expect your Hass to have a good amount of bloom and fruitset in spring 2022.
I’m on avocado tree #3 I saw you profile on the Pinkerton, that was the only cultivar I was interested in because there were no Hass or Lamb Hass in 5g sizes. I decided to go with a smaller tree because the two previous ones were 15g sized 3-4 year old trees that were a pain to transplant and I think the damage done in the transplant sounded the death knell and I basically just watched my trees die over the year. My Pinkerton however is alive and well, no transplant shock and it is growing and putting out nice healthy leaves.
You were right about it being precocious, I had a few little avocados on it and I removed them. Glad this article confirmed my decision.
OK! All caught up!! Good to visit and see you and your family doing well!! See you in a few more months lol… Cheers!!
forgot to add that the reason I let the tree form little fruit was I remembered reading that people with immature mango trees let it form fruit and remove it then, if you just remove the flower clusters it will continue to try and put out more flowers so I was just treating my avocado as if I would a mango. I guess next year I will just remove the flowers when they show up.
I planted a reed,Fuerte, and wurts last summer about Sept. Here in Hawaii.
The reed tried to bloom but set no fruit. The fuerte put out much new growth but no bloom. The little cado bloomed like crazy and set one fruit which I have left alone. The little cado has put out the most new growth but not up, it is growing out in diameter. I have read that the little cado sometimes will do this. I think I will leave the one fruit just to try it for taste!!
I know Greg doesn’t think much of it but the last two years I’ve sprayed honey/water on my avo blossoms, 4 times each year, and had good fruit set. It really attracts bees! For me, so far seems to work. I’m multi grafting my 3 year old Fuerte with Ettinger, Lamb, trying to get it about 1/3 of each, as the Fuerte is an excellent avo, but can be a shy bearer. No fruit on my baby Wurtz, hope yours tasts good, best of luck?
Good idea, Dave. If the Wurtz is still growing well, then definitely leave that fruit on there so you get to taste it. Wurtz trees do have more of a spreading, cascading branch structure, and not an upright, columnar shape.
One of my Hass trees is now about 7ft tall at its highest point. It has about 8 fruits setting. I want this tree to get to 10ft fast, is it best to take these fruit off now? Is the difference that noticeable?
Hi Sean,
A seven-foot Hass tree that is carrying only eight fruitlets here in June will still grow well, provided the tree is cared for well. It should grow to about 10 feet tall by this time next year. A few of those fruitlets are also likely to drop on their own in the next month or so. I wouldn’t remove any manually.
The last point in your post about seedling vs grafted is very insightful. I often ask myself – but why should I intervene? Hasn’t the tree evolved to do this better than I can manipulate it to do? Your explanation addresses that.
As always, great post.
Thanks, Brandon. I also think it’s an important thing to keep in mind.
Most seedling avocado trees that I’ve observed grow well over 10 feet before they have their first bloom. But once they do, they are capable of holding a first crop of dozens of avocados. They always have a strong, balanced branch structure too, by the way. That’s the natural avocado tree. No need for stakes, pruning, fruit thinning.
The grafted ones we buy and grow are so different and so needy!
My small 7 year old Hass finally produced a great crop that I have been watching over the last year. I picked two large bumpy fruits, which ripened up in a week and were wonderful. I just went out today to pick the remaining large ones, and all I found were pits and rinds at the base of the tree. All the larger fruits are gone, and nothing left but the tiny unripe new fruit from this year’s bloom. What happened here? I know the squirrels eat my oranges, but wouldn’t think they’d eat avocado. So disappointing!
Hi Greg – what does it indicate if the stem from a leaf has turned black but the leaf hasn’t died yet and is starting to curl and brown? This is from my recently transplanted grafted 2 year old avocado plant into the ground. I planted it in April of this year.
Hi Greg. Love your site!
I planted 3 avocado trees last January – Reed, Haas, Bacon (all 5 gallon). Thanks to your posts and guidance they have thrived and grown rapidly. We wrapped them during cold nights, and all was going great. The Haas and Bacon have thousands of little blossoms now, but both have dropped half of their leaves in the past week. Is this normal? Is there something I can do to help the stressed out trees?
Thanks for writing this, Greg. Just found this a year after you posted it, and it’s still helping people. There is a 4′ tall Reed tree in my backyard which has produced a few dozen fruitlets. The majority of these were pulled off for the health of the tree. The largest of those remaining fruits are nearing strawberry size and I’m very tempted to keep a few. Knowing that it would probably be best to remove all fruit, I’m glad you used bold font to drive home the point of the article. Will now go begrudgingly pull the last fruit off 🙁
hi Greg,
I normally remove avocados from a young tree but on one of my Reeds, I didn’t. Really dumb and I regret it. The weight of the Reed avocados i left on the tree bent the trunk above the graft and now looks like the letter “S.” This is causing the top of the tree to point toward my neighbor’s house. Looks like a watersprout is attempting to straighten it out. I was thinking about staking it and training it back, but the “S” seems to rigid. Any suggestions? Or maybe just leave it and have a funny looking tree? I have 10 avocado trees anyway. It’s a beautiful Reed, good producer, almost my height, but i should’ve cut the fruit off. Thank you!
Do you do the same for newly planted stone fruit or other fruit trees? I was thinking of leaving a few fruit on so I can taste the fruit. Do you think this will slow down the trees growth a lot?
I bought a 15 gallon Hass avocado and planted it about 3 years ago. It’s been growing and doing really well. This year, 3 to 4 years after planting my tree lost almost all of its leaves and now has about 400 avocados buddng out and growing. It is just now starting to try to put out a few new leaves. I’m concerned that maybe there’s something wrong with the tree and it thinks it’s dying so all of a sudden it’s trying to put out all kinds of fruit. I don’t know what to think. I would welcome any insight into this