Avocados

[SirJoe]

I have an avocado tree in my garden and it's been there it seems for ever, when will it start to bare fruit? Do all avocados bare fruit are there male and female trees?

 

[Chuck]

I have an avocado tree in my garden and it's been there it seems for ever, when will it start to bare fruit? Do all avocados bare fruit are there male and female trees?

Avocados are a weird plant. They can be self fertile but usually not. Each tree will have both male and female flowers but the problem is that they aren't normally open at the same time, thus no fruit. If you tree does not have flowers that means the tree is not mature enough to reproduce. If your tree was grown from seed it will take years for it to mature. There are a few varieties of avocado which have been bred to be more self fertile but you can't tell if it is one of them by looking at it.. Most successful avocado production is by cross pollinating which means two trees

 

[kgord]

I wish I could grow avocados here as they are so expensive in a store. My mom got one to sprout once, by just putting it in water. Maybe if it was babied extensively it could grow here, but I doubt it. They seem to be mostly in California, and areas that have a drier and more temperate climate. I would like to have a tree though.

 

[petesede]

They take forever to get mature enough to produce fruit, and as someone said, you almost always need more than 1 tree. As a funny aside, it is the closest thing I have had to have a mid-life crisis when I realized that if I plant an avocado tree from a seed right now, there is a good chance I will be dead before it ever produces fruit LOL. I´ve read it is like 20 years until they produce fruit reliably.

 

[SirJoe]

Avocados are a weird plant. They can be self fertile but usually not. Each tree will have both male and female flowers but the problem is that they aren't normally open at the same time, thus no fruit. If you tree does not have flowers that means the tree is not mature enough to reproduce. If your tree was grown from seed it will take years for it to mature. There are a few varieties of avocado which have been bred to be more self fertile but you can't tell if it is one of them by looking at it.. Most successful avocado production is by cross pollinating which means two trees

Thank you for your reply, I grew the avocado tree from seed and I had it in a pot for about 5 years, shortly after planting it directly into the ground it had a big spurt of growth and has bared flowers but as yet not any fruit. I guess the reason is because, as you mentioned the male and female flowers bloom at different times. I have some neighbors that have recently also planted some trees but those were bought in a nursery. I guess I will just have to wait a little bit more to see what happens.