March marks the start of the avocado season in California, when fruit from the previous growing cycle becomes ready for harvest and shipment to markets across the state and the United States.
At Brokaw Nursery in Ventura, about 28 hectares of avocado trees are cultivated. The nursery produces more than 300,000 avocado trees each year, primarily Hass and Gem varieties. Consuelo Fernandez, chief operating officer at Brokaw Nursery, oversees production at the site.
"So this flower will set into fruit, and we will be able to collect that fruit a year from now," she said.
According to the California Avocado Commission, about 3,000 avocado growers cultivate approximately 20,234 hectares of avocado orchards across the state. Fernandez said more than 85 per cent of these growers have sourced trees from Brokaw Nursery.
The nursery also exports avocado trees to international markets.
"One of the main differences between Brokaw Nursery and other avocado nurseries is that we focus mainly on clonal avocado trees," Fernandez said.
The nursery uses grafting and cloning techniques to produce genetically uniform trees. Fernandez said the approach allows growers to manage orchards with consistent characteristics across plantings.
"The fact that they are all genetically uniform means they can all be managed the same way; they all have the same needs. So that's why the concept of cloning a tree is very important because you can transfer desired characteristics to all the progenies," she said.
According to the California Avocado Commission, the majority of avocados consumed in the United States are imported, mainly from Mexico and Peru. However, California remains the main domestic production region.
Brokaw Nursery is also working on the development of new avocado varieties aimed at competing with Hass avocados imported from Mexico. The objective is to identify varieties suited to commercial production in California.
Kamille Garcia-Brucher, manager of research and development at Brokaw Nursery, said candidate varieties are assessed for several commercial characteristics.
"We evaluate that fruit for commercial merits like peelability, fruit size, yield, ease of harvest, and, of course, we want them to be tasty," Garcia-Brucher said.
Although large volumes of Hass avocados are imported from Mexico, the Hass variety originated in California. It was first identified in the 1920s by Rudolph Hass, and the first Hass avocado tree was grown in La Habra, California.
Source: Spectrum News
