Our Healthy, Four Year Old Avocado Tree
There’s a lot of misinformation out there regarding avocado trees. In fact I’ve asked the question, “Do avocado trees pollinate themselves?” many times, while always getting different answers.
Turns out, they do self-pollinate, but they’re a complicated plant, so let’s break the complex stuff down into simple, plain English – which admittedly is one of my strengths.
First off, many varieties will pump out a great crop one year, and a rubbish crop the following year. The climate plays a big part in this cycle. Therefore you should try to keep your tree protected from the cold weather if you can. But you’ll have serious trouble with keeping your tree alive if you live in an area which snows.
Avocados mature on the tree – but then ripen off the tree. They also have to be big and mature to ripen properly. When big enough, pluck you avocados off and store them at room temperature for 3 or 4 days.
They’ll ripen faster if stored with other fruits such as apples or bananas because of the ethylene gas those fruits expel.
As for pollinating, they do it themselves, but they’re strange and complicated things.
The flower that eventually turns into an avocado (if sucessfully pollinated) is both a male and a female!
Depending on which type of tree you have (an “A” type, or a “B” type) the flower will start the day as a female and end the day as a male, or the other way around.
A Typical Avocado Flower
The “A” varieties are: Hass, Gwen, Lamb Hass, Pinkerton, Reed.
The “B” varieties are: Fuerte, Sharwil, Zutano, Bacon, Ettinger, Sir Prize, Walter Hole.
The “A‘s” open as females on the morning of day 1, closing around lunchtime. On day 2 they opening as males in the afternoon.
The “B‘s” open as females on the afternoon day 1, close in the late afternoon. On day 2 they open as males in the morning.
So how do the flowers pollinate?
Well, on our tree they’re helped along by ants. Every time a flower opens on our tree, there’s a handful of ants nibbling at the nectar, helping to pollinate the flower. In your case it might be bees or other insects.
Either way you can give nature a helping hand by manually pollinating the flowers yourself, by using a tiny, ultra-soft paint brush each morning before work, and each afternoon after coming home. This is what I’ve done this year with fantastic results:
Manually Pollinating an Avocado Flower with a Very Soft Brush
For the past two weeks (since flowering began) I’ve been using a feather-soft paint brush from the local stationary shop and brushing the flowers both morning and night. Be very gentle as you do this, because the little flowers are brittle and can snap off.
Successful Pollination: A Baby Avocado Emerges
A few days after flowering, each flower will start to go brown. The ones that have not pollinated will drop off the tree within a few days. The ones that have pollinated however will start to produce tiny avocados underneath the dying brown flower petals (like the picture above).
Want to keep your tree healthy? In that case, whatever you do, don’t over-water it. One of the leading killers for avocado trees is “Root rot”. Avocados don’t mind the dry, and you should only be watering them if it’s been exceedingly dry for longer periods of time. Here in New Zealand that’s not often a problem!
Another Lovely Avocado Growing on the Tree
At the end of each summer you should have a lovely bunch of avocados appearing on the tree. Just be careful that hungry insects don’t get at them first!
Concerned that your tree is getting too much water? One easy way to tell is to look at the leaves. Dark brown leaves mean your tree is slowly drowning. If your leaves are going brown lay off the water immediately!
If you want to fertilize your tree, try to use a dry fertilizer such as sheep pellets mixed with “Blood & bone” powder. Mix them together into the top soil above your tree and let the next rain shower do the work for you!
Feel free to leave any tips or tricks in the comments section below.
Happy growing!
2:54 am on April 24th, 2011 1
How do you avoid growing an avocado from seed and ending up with the bad tree with no fruit? Any tips?
2:51 am on April 25th, 2011 2
Hi Gavin,
Thanks for the picture of a very attractive tree. Did you grow it from seed or was it store bought?
I have grown several trees from seed but none have flowered or borne fruit. Is there anything I could do to help them flower?
Many thanks,
Alvin
5:13 pm on July 8th, 2011 3
Hi there,
Our tree was store bought and I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you guys: If you grow a tree from a seed, you’ll be looking at about 7 to 10 years before it fruits.
Therefore it’s always better to “Graft” a tree, which means taking a sprout from an existing tree branch, making it grow roots, then planting it.
A grafted tree fruits within about 3 years on average. Plant shops only sell grafted trees too, as customers don’t want to wait a decade for lunch!
I think you’ll both have a few years to wait before fruiting. You might even want to cut your losses and buy a young, grafted tree instead.
Good luck!
Gav
11:35 am on February 2nd, 2012 4
Gavin,
What you described is not grafting. It sounds more like cloning.
Grafting is when a plant (rootstock) is grown from seed or cloned from another root. Then a cutting (scion) from the desired plant is joined to the rootstock.
1:09 am on February 12th, 2012 5
I have a three year old avocado tree in a large pot. I grew it from an avocado pit / seed. The leaves are big and beautiful.Should I transplant it on the ground this spring? Will this tree eventually bear fruit?
12:19 pm on May 5th, 2012 6
We have an avocado tree, planted from a sprouted seed, about 25 years ago. It often blooms, at least once every springtime, but never has borne any fruit. I was told that you must have a male and a female plant.
I look forward to trying this technique. The tree is just now beginning to blossom.
12:22 pm on May 5th, 2012 7
Another thing, when the weather is very hot and dry, the leaves do tend to turn brown. We irrigate about once a month.
2:09 pm on May 29th, 2012 8
Thanks for the info! Too late for this year but will definitely try this method at the next flowering season.
By the way, I think you bought your brush in the local stationEry shop.
4:22 pm on July 8th, 2012 9
I have a self pollinating Haas that is in its third year and about 8 feet high. Its large and full, but never flowers…what can i do to change this so it will produce fruit?
3:10 am on July 10th, 2012 10
Hi Gavin, and many thanks for this article, it’s very exhaustive and useful. I’ve got 3 avocado plants from seed, 1 week ago I planted one of them, the bigger one (at the oment 30 cm with 6 large leafs on top), into a pot. I would like to know if it is better to leave the plant in full sun (in my garden I have full sun for 10 hours per day, 35° at the moment) or it’s better to prefer penumbra ’till it’ll get bigger ?
Regards,
Gef.
1:20 am on August 27th, 2012 11
Thanks Gavin for the information about hand-pollinating Avocado trees/ We have a large Fuerte tree in our garden in Perth, Western Australia and, although we get lots of flowers every year, we rarely get anything more than a dozen or so avocados. We never seem to see many bees around so I’m going to see if following your guide improves our crop.
8:26 pm on November 4th, 2012 12
Hello, can i grow Avocado in Tunisia?? and how to grow a field for about 100 to 200 trees? from where i can get babe plants, its not available here in Tunisia! any help please? and is hass brand is best for our kind of climate!?
3:02 pm on November 5th, 2012 13
Hi there, I looked at climate data for Tunisia, and it looks like a Avocado tree’s paradise. Endless sunshine, and no sub-zero temperatures. Perfect for avocados. I don’t know about the brand that is best suited to Tunisia, but “Hass” is very popular in New Zealand.
11:53 am on December 6th, 2012 14
hello
where would one be able to purchase avocado trees from in NZ.Im situated in the eastern bay of plenty,NZ and would like to start avocado growing.I have looked on other sites but really dont no what im doing
Much appreciated
6:47 pm on February 4th, 2013 15
Growing an avocado from seed is fun and an attractive plant will be the benefit. The problem is that any fruit that are eventually borne by the avocado tree will not be the same genetics of the fruit that the seed came from. All commercial avocados that are in stores came from trees that were grafted to the root system of other avocados. A Hass grafted tree, for example, is the only way to grow Hass avocados. Growing a tree from the Hass seed will produce fruit that may be totally different from a Hass and never the same as the Hass. The most satisfying way to get high quality fruit is to buy a named variety of avocado, grafted to a clonal root system. There are clonal root systems that have been bred to survive well in conditions of root rot, high salinity or other soil conditions that are harmful to avocado trees.
2:53 pm on March 1st, 2013 16
If you have a tree that is not bearing fruit, I was taught this secret that sounds crazy but works. Clip a switch off the tree not bearing fruit and beat the heck out of the trunk with the stick and then lean the stick up against the trunk and the next season you will have fruit. The 95 year old farmer that told me that, said \"trees are like women, you have to beat the hell out of them once in a while to make them wake up and do what they were born to do.\" I had an orange tree and a from seed avacado tree I did this to and both bear lots of fruit every year.
10:41 am on April 7th, 2013 17
Hi… I read that you said we can help pollinating by hand and a brush … but what exactly do I need to do? do I mix a concoction of something and brush it on the flower? I just bought a house with an Avocado tree in the backyard…
all new to this … again – I read that we can help pollinate – but I am confused as to with what??? please help !!! thank you
5:41 pm on April 7th, 2013 18
1. That is awful, Donna. Violent garbage like that should not be repeated as humor just because he was old. I like the elderly and wish everyone can live longer. But the benefit is when they die, so do their nightmarish outdated *sensibilities*. Same will happen to us.
2. How long does an avocado flower? My Hass has been flowering for about a month. I put a potted Zutano next to it (flowering also). It has been there for weeks. How long does it take? The Hass flowered last year but it did not fruit. But I also did not monitor it. This year I have the time to pay attention to progress. I am going to try the brush method, too.
3. How long does pollen’s efficacy last? If I swathed male flowers from both the Hass and Zutano and drove to my dad’s Hass 20 minutes away, will the pollen be alright? I figure I can use his own pollen on his own tree, but I figured what-the-hey, it cannot hurt. And it is something I have always wanted to know.
Thanks to anyone who can answer.