059 Avocado Basics on Fabulous Fruit Friday! Battling Spider Mites.

So, you want to grow an avocado tree? Can’t say it’ll work where you live. But what the heck, you gotta try, right? We’ve got tips for you to give it a good start, no matter where you are. It’s Fabulous Fruit Friday, and today we tackle the persnickety but popular avocado, with fruit expert Ed Laivo from Tomorrow's Harvest. And horticulture professor Debbie Flower fights off the spider mites on your plants. Control strategies include a blast of water, insecticidal soap, or neem oil.

It’s Episode 59 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you by Smart Pots and Tomorrow’s Harvest. And we will do it all in under 30 minutes.…let’s go!

Garden Basics comes out every Friday during November through January. We’ll be back to a twice a week schedule in February.  More info including live links, product information, transcripts, and chapters available at the home site for Garden Basics with Farmer Fred.

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Links:
Tomorrow's Harvest Avocado Tree Special!
Smart Pots!
Farmer Fred Rant: Growing an Avocado Tree? Good Luck!
Spider Mite Control Tips

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Transcript

Farmer Fred: 0:00

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred.

Farmer Fred 2: 0:20

Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information well you've come to the right spot.

Farmer Fred: 0:32

So you want to grow an avocado tree, huh? Well, I can't say it'll work where you live, but hey, what the heck... you got to try, right? We've got tips for you to give it a good start, no matter where you are. It's Fabulous Fruit Friday, and today we tackle the persnickety but popular avocado, with fruit tree expert Ed Laivo. And, horticulture Professor Debbie Flower fights off the spider mites on your plants. It's Episode 59 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast brought to you by Smart Pots and Tomorrow's Harvest. And we'll do it all in under 30 minutes. Let's go.

Farmer Fred 2: 1:12

There's a reason the Food Network website lists nearly 2600 recipes with avocado as an ingredient. A lot of people crave that luscious, creamy fruit. So why not grow your own? Oh, I see why. Because you don't live in California! Well, even people in California have a hard time growing the avocado tree. Just go look at the Farmer Fred Rant blog page. And take a look at the post I put up there something like seven years ago, entitled"Avocado trees in Sacramento? Good luck." To this day, it is still getting comments from people who see the occasional avocado tree here in Northern California and think they can grow it. Oh, if only that were so and how many of you, no matter where you live, have taken that avocado pit, stuck toothpicks in it, suspended it into a glass of water, and it sprouted. And you planted it. What happened? Well, let's talk about what happens when you plant avocado seeds and now you try to grow avocado trees. Can you grow avocado trees where you live? Let's turn to Ed Laivo of Tomorrow's Harvest.com. Tomorrow's Harvest, by the way, Ed, sells something like what, eight different avocado varieties?

Ed Laivo: 2:28

Yeah, I think so. Roughly Fred.

Farmer Fred: 2:30

Where are avocados grown commercially?

Ed Laivo: 2:33

Um, Southern California and Mexico.

Farmer Fred: 2:35

Not even Texas, Arizona and Florida?

Ed Laivo: 2:38

I can't say honestly. But I don't think so. I think we do in Florida. Absolutely. They're not as I don't think there is intensely flavored as the Mexican and Guatemalan varieties myself.

Farmer Fred: 2:49

Let's talk about the avocado varieties grown by Tomorrow's Harvest. Those, I would imagine, would be adaptable mainly to southern and central California. Correct?

Ed Laivo: 2:59

Yeah.

Farmer Fred: 2:59

Now that's not to say they're not trying to grow avocados commercially in the Great Central Valley. I know there are a lot of experiments going on and some test plots to grow avacados around Fresno, for example.

Ed Laivo: 3:13

I think it has more to do with climate change and our ability to you know, to see that avocados now are becoming more and more adapted. And I know you and I, you know, traditionally have had this adversity to even recommending avocados in Northern California.

Farmer Fred: 3:26

Let's talk about the right conditions for growing avocados. First of all, the temperature range. If you think about Southern California and the avocado region down there, you're thinking of a temperature range that might be highs, probably no more than 85 usually and lows not dipping below 45.

Ed Laivo: 3:43

Yeah, yeah, that's Yeah, that would be your typical, you know, let's say Southern California temperature range, like Riverside east, and that's fine.

Farmer Fred: 3:52

And how many areas of the country have that 40 degree range? Not many.

Ed Laivo: 3:57

No, no, not not a lot. And I'm sure you know, and this is definitely going to be just my inexperience with being able to tell you exactly where you know, avocados are grown. But I'm sure there's avocados that are grown, you know, down in the southern belt there along the coast coastal belt, I'm sure there's avocado varieties that can be grown down in that area as well. But I'm just not as familiar with those as I am, of course the California varieties.

Farmer Fred: 4:19

Alright, let's also look at other aspects of the climate that avocados need. Look at any instructions for growing an avocado tree and the subject of irrigation comes up and it always says the same thing. Avocados require moist, but well drained soil. What the heck is that?

Ed Laivo: 4:38

Well, let me tell you what that means. That means is that they like excellent, above excellent. they want perfect drainage and they're very susceptible to the disease called phytophera root rot, which of course, it takes a lot of different plant material but avocados are particularly susceptible and you know, flat out die in poor draining soils and then to your point When you are even, you know, keeping the soil moist, you don't you don't want to underwater them and you don't want to overwater them. So we don't want to make them sound like they're too temperamental, but dang it, maybe they are a little bit.

Farmer Fred: 5:11

So if you can conquer the watering and the drainage issue, if you've got fairly moderate temperatures, I would think avocados in order for pollination to occur, they need a little bit of wind.

Ed Laivo: 5:22

Oh, yeah, they do. Yeah, you know, and of course, it depends on where you're at Southern California, you have to go with the A and B types of avocados planted together, you know, to ensure that you get cross pollenization. But in Northern California, the avocados get thrown out of sync so much that actually the pattern of flowering that's very, very unique. There's a very unique pattern to how the avocado flowers with the you know, male flower opening one night and close or one day and then opening the next day as a female flower. And it's very intricate, but in Northern California, because of the cut temperatures, we find that the avocados are thrown so out of sync that they really don't have a great synchronization in terms of that that flowering pattern. And so many, many varieties of avocados up here are dependably so fruitful.

Farmer Fred: 6:11

because of the stress correct? Yes,

Ed Laivo: 6:13

because of the stress.

Farmer Fred: 6:15

Let's talk a little bit about what we mean when we say A flower and B flower. at the farmer Fred rant blog page on that post I mentioned about avocados, The explanation from the California rare fruit Growers Association points out that avocado flowers are either receptive to pollen in the morning and shed the pollen the following afternoon. That would be a type A flower, or are receptive to pollen in the afternoon and shed pollen The following morning, that would be type B. And among the more popular type A flower variety avocados would be Mexicola, and Pinkerton and the type B flowers that might stand a chance in USDA zone nine. Bacon, Jim, zutano, fuerte, Sir Prize and Stewart.

Ed Laivo: 7:00

Yeah, Reed avocado is an A variety similar to Haas. And so it requires a B flowers similar. So a Fuerte would work, a Sir Prize would work, a Bacon would work. These are all B varieties. And they would pollinate or they would work as a companion to the Reed. And I think that what we're finding is that Hass actually or Hass will do well. And the variety that that Carmen Hass exists is really interesting in that, you know, it can have two crops a season, it has a characteristic which is called off season cropping, which flowers when the plant shouldn't be flowering. It's an interesting phenomenon. And this Carmen Hass actually has that characteristic. And it's not any different than a Hass, I think it's a sport of a Hass. As a matter of fact, in this day and age, you know what we're looking at a size control on avocados, Fred, so I would recommend that, you know, there's some wonderful varieties of avocados and because we are in such a transition period for our climate, and you know, it seems Of course, it's getting milder, really, I think size control becomes the key grow your favorite avocado or grow a variety that you've heard that's spectacular, like the Reed, and cover it and protect it during the colder winters. I mean, it doesn't require anything other than this, then a simple protection. A Hass has got a lot a little bit more cold tolerance and say a variety like Reed. Reed is one of the most spectacular avocados you could ever eat. But it's definitely a little bit more cold sensitive down to about 30 degrees, where it starts to have trouble where Hass can go just a little bit lower the varieties that you've said are actually good at 28. And one of those, I think the Fuerte, that's one of the oldest of the, let's say, commercial varieties of avocados in California and I would still hold up a Fuerte, a great Fuerte against a Hoss any day and I'm sure my colleagues would argue with me, but I really really liked the Fuerte, I think it has excellent flavor. It's just that the Fuerte tends to be what they call an alternate bearer at a time so you aren't going to get as heavy a crop like every other year off of the Fuerte so that's why it lost its commercial popularity

Farmer Fred: 9:20

for those who aren't familiar with that the fuerte which is spelled by the way FUERTE is a very popular variety in the marginal areas of USDA zone nine and one of the comments at the farmer Fred ram blog page comes from a neighbor of yours in Brentwood in Eastern Contra Costa County Ed, yeah, and very windy there and this person says, "I am growing the fuerte, Mexicola, bacon, Reed, Pinkerton and the lamb Hass. I've done years of research, I have visited trees from Napa to Oakland to Lodi to Santa Cruz. From what I hear, Sir Prize and Stewart are not heavy producers in northern California although they will survive but not thrive, so I hear from people who have them. For good odds, Mexicola, zutano bacon and fuerte of these fuerte and Mexicola are the most flavorful but bacon and zutano is butteryness is excellent for those who want variety. of these bacon is slightly tastier, and often the favorite for a lot of people, and it makes for an excellent sandwich avocado as well."

Ed Laivo: 10:25

I agree with that. i would add Pinkerton into that mix as well. And the Reed is definitely not one that would typically be recommended for somebody living in Brentwood, I can assure you that but in fact, of all of those, I would say the Reed is by far the most fabulous flavor variety of avocado there is and I think anybody who knows avocados would agree with that there are more avant garde avocados and there's newer avocados that are being introduced all the time but the Reed has truly become one of the standards I think for for top quality avocados. And then that Pinkerton is right there too. is it's a fabulous flavored variety.

Farmer Fred: 11:05

I don't want anybody to get confused about where Brentwood is. we're not talking about the the very tony Brentwood, near Beverly Hills. the town of Brentwood is in Eastern Contra Costa County, you could safely say its a working class town.

Ed Laivo: 11:19

It is Yeah, it's a farming town. As a matter of fact, there's all sorts of farms all over Brentwood. It's famous for its corn and cherries. There's many many, many new picks all over the place of cherry orchards and there's all kinds of Brentwood corn that's grown everywhere as well. And also my good good friends and I'll give them a plug at frog hollow farms which do just the most wonderful pallet of fruit that they sell online and sell direct to the consuming public they have a sensational selection of fruit.

Farmer Fred: 11:55

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Ed Laivo: 13:20

Well, you know, it's funny because I wrote about the Reed just recently. And I recommend that even if you're up in a in a more marginal climate where you know, they the recommendation tends to suggest that you can grow these without a pollinator without a B flower. The Reed actually is a B or B flower and requires an A type. But if you're in those areas, and really what I recommend is that you plan two. simply because why not increase the odds and then attain that you're going to get fruit? And then also, you know, avocados do have a tendency to be alternative bearers. I think that the reason the real rationale for planting two becomes play the odds that you're going to get one of them to produce every year. You know, they don't make great houseplants. Yeah. Despite the fact that you can plant that seed, you know, of course and put your toothpicks in. And it really seems to acclimate to the home really, really quickly, which it does. But in fact, you know, if you want to do them from seed your avocado, it could take as long as like 10 years to produce fruit. And then to find out of course, if that fruit wasn't worth the wait would be even more discouraging, you know, enjoy your seed and push it and I can honestly tell you that more than likely most of the avocados that are planted in Northern California probably came to being that way. Because they weren't a lot of avocados available up in this market up in the northern California market, let's say before, no, I would say maybe the mid 80s you know before companies like Laverne nursery down in Southern California, made them available, started making them readily available. But before that, I mean, seedlings were it.

Farmer Fred: 15:01

getting back to the soil that avocados required the moist but well drained soil, I would think they would have a difficult time in heavy clay soil.

Ed Laivo: 15:11

They have a terrible time. So you elevate them you know, you get your, you know, elevated planting up, I would listen to the last week's episode where you and I talked about raised beds because that would be the ideal way to approach your heavy clay soils and planting your avocado.

Farmer Fred: 15:28

One comment at the farmer Fred rant blog page on that posting about avocados, Sandy wrote in and said "if you buy your avocado trees from a big box store, you'll need to remove the potting mix as soon as possible. The woodchips in those pots will cause root rot." True or not true?

Ed Laivo: 15:45

I mean, that's interesting. That could be a possibility simply because the wood chips could hold moisture. Absolutely. Hey, but Yeah, that'd be that'd be a concern. You know, I wouldn't want a tremendous amount of organic matter in my soil, because that would would have too much water holding capacity. Yeah, you should be concerned about that.

Farmer Fred: 16:05

You have been famous on this program for saying you don't fertilize your trees. Do you not fertilize avocado trees?

Ed Laivo: 16:13

Wow, what a great question. How about this? I fertilize avocado trees? Absolutely. Mostly, because my experience with growing them is primarily in the nursery. So I've grown them in the nurseries for years. As far as having my own avocado trees to grow, I don't have them. I've tried container growing, I had a long long experiment with growing all sorts of varieties and avocado of avocados and containers back in the 90s. And I probably I think I probably grew about 10 different varieties and tried different rootstocks and was really unsuccessful in growing at least the way I would like to be, you know, growing in containers with avocados really unsuccessful with growing avocados and containers. So I kind of gave up on that because I thought the best way to grow avocados was to be growing containers where you have the ability to pull them in and protect them during the wintertime. And so I thought that that would increase, you know, our ability to be able to go out and represent avocados to the you know, to the consumer, but I failed miserably.

Farmer Fred: 17:12

Okay, well, that brings up another point that we like to talk about when we're talking citrus is to protect them in the wintertime, bring them indoors, and then stick them back out in spring. Can the avocado take that kind of stress?

Ed Laivo: 17:24

No, I don't think so it doesn't like to be moved. That's really what I found was and if you move it a lot, it kind of gets temperamental. And it'll defoliate. And the problem that I had with these containers and some of these container avocados, mind you, I didn't do this for a year or two. I had some of these container avocados for up to probably eight or nine years and just kept trying everything in the world. But they will defoliate and when they defoliate they'll stay defoliated all winter are all summer long. And so they become real susceptible to sunburn because they're very sensitive to sunburn. So you have to make sure that you're protecting the trunk. Well, if they defoliate then protecting the trunk becomes an extra difficult job because literally you have to pull them into the shade. Because you can't paint the entire tree because as I'm told the avocado can photosynthesize on its trunk. Hmm. So definitely, that is something that you want to protect. So there's a lot of very, very soft green wood all over this avocado and I've been brought to understand that that that photosynthesizing so you don't want to paint anything other than the the hardened off, you know, brown trunk.

Farmer Fred: 18:35

Oh, wow, that's good to know. that if a lot of people are in the habit in to protect the bark of and the tree itself from sunscald to paint the trunk of the tree, especially new trees, and you're saying wait and wait till it hardens off

Ed Laivo: 18:51

the new trees, you know, it's all right to take and protect the lower part of the tree that that I think goes without saying you have to protect the lower part of the tree. And so no, paint the lower part of the tree.

Farmer Fred: 19:02

Okay, and when we're talking painting, we're talking using a 50-50 mix of interior white latex paint or some pastel color and water. Correct. Right. I know you love pastels.

Ed Laivo: 19:13

I do. I do as long as they're light and bright and reflective. Have fun. Go Go with light lime green for an avocado. That'd be beautiful.

Farmer Fred: 19:24

All right, let's give some hope to all those people listening who are more concerned that their snow blower is going to start. can they grow an avocado? You talked about size control. We've talked about greenhouses on this program. Can you grow a sized control avocado, in a greenhouse in a cold climate?

Ed Laivo: 19:41

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And you know that I've I've got lots of lots of people that have, I've talked to through the years that, you know, successfully grow avocados and heated greenhouses around the United States. Definitely. You know, it means that it has to be almost a commercial type. Commercial greenhouse. But, you know, if you have a well built, well insulated, and then heated greenhouse, you probably can grow an avocado just about anywhere.

Farmer Fred: 20:10

What varieties take best to being grown in a greenhouse, considering that the height of most home greenhouses aren't usually more than 10 or 12 feet?

Ed Laivo: 20:22

Well, you know, Mexicola, Mexicola Grande are going to be the ones that everybody's going to try first. But I think with pruning, I don't think you're limited. I think you're limited only by the, by what you know, you choose not to prune on any variety of fruit, but avocados, if I'm going to grow them in a greenhouse, I don't care what variety it is, you know, you're going to have to prune it. So why not just pick something great, and, you know, and work with it? And then keep it short?

Farmer Fred: 20:51

When is avocado pruning season?

Ed Laivo: 20:54

Well, as a matter of fact, I had the whole greenhouse full of avocados that I just left at work today. And as a matter of fact, we had to go through and top all of them because they were getting too tall. Avocado pruning season traditionally, for something in the ground, would probably be in the spring. But keep in mind this that, you know, anytime during the season that you need to print your avocado is going to be fine.

Farmer Fred: 21:18

What are some good training wheel varieties of avocados for the home gardener to try?

Ed Laivo: 21:23

Well, you know, of course, you're going to you're going to start out with you know, Mexicola, Mexicola grande. Those are, those are probably two of the most popular varieties for the, let's say, the more marginal areas for avocados. But the I think after that everybody wants to do a Hass, you know, and you should try hass I mean that I don't think that there's anything wrong with that at all. But then, you know, when you start to get into some what I consider the flavor bombs, the flavor bombs are going to be like, the Fuerte, and the Pinkerton and the Reed. I mean, these are all what I consider to be, you know, the real real wonderful flavored avocados. You know, and then of course, you know, the bacon always works as a great pollinator for most of the A-type of avocado. So it's real popular for that.

Farmer Fred: 22:15

According to UC Riverside, of these varieties. The mexicola ripens from August through October; the Pinkerton the commercial harvest begins in January in some of those commercial areas. According to UC Riverside, the Bacon avocado matures, November to January in Orange County, December to March and Ventura County; the Zutano, ripens in October to December; the Fuerte is ready to pick in November.

Ed Laivo: 22:45

And Hass is April through October. Reed is July, October, July and October. So I'm right about that. I know. I know Reed. Zutano is October through March. So it's a winter ripener. You know, zutano is a good variety as well. Pinkertons, December through April.

Farmer Fred: 23:04

I think we should do a shameless plug for the varieties at tomorrow's harvest dot com.

Ed Laivo: 23:09

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, we have about all the varieties of avocados that are popular for Northern California. And I would definitely recommend that you come check out the tomorrow's harvest site and find what is an offering I think, as far as the great varieties that we have right now. We have a great selection of Reeds and we have a great selection of the Carmen Hass. We have Haas Of course, and then you know, to pollinate the whole bunch. We have a Bacon's. So those are those all work well together.

Farmer Fred: 23:44

Find it at tomorrow's harvest.com: avocado trees, berry bushes, citrus trees, fruit trees, and a lot more. Tomorrow's harvest.com, from that location, Ed Laivo. it's fabulous fruit Friday, and it can't be fabulous unless you have avocados.

Ed Laivo: 24:00

I couldn't agree more Fred.

Farmer Fred: 24:06

We like to answer your garden questions here on the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred and we like to bring in somebody who knows something about how to answer questions and who better than a college horticulture Professor retired, such as Debbie Flower. and Debbie, Mike sent us a picture of his tomato plants. He says,"I haven't been able to get into my garden for several weeks. But when I went out this morning, this is what I found. There's no signs of munching on foliage or fruit. Should I break out the napalm?" And we should point out that it looks like his tomato plants, besides being very crinkled and curled, the leaves are covered in webbing. And in the very last picture is the tell tale sign of tomato worm poop. So there may be many issues going on here. But I think what he's most concerned about is all that webbing that's in the tomato plant.

Debbie Flower: 25:00

Yeah, that's an amazing amount of webbing I don't think I've ever seen that much webbing on a tomato plant. The other telltale sign which is not easy to see, because of all the webbing is something called stippling. Stippling is when the chlorophyll is no longer in the leaf and so you get lots of yellow spots on the on the leaf, very tiny yellow spots. So it looks like it's spotted with with gold dust or something very small yellow dots. So that is that in the webbing together would lead me to believe that he has spider mites, spider mites, love dry, dusty places. And we are right now in California, where we haven't had rain since I don't know, May. it's very dusty. And that builds up the really nice places for those spider mites to live. I assume it's a protection from the things that eat them to be in this dry, dusty place and his tomatoes don't appear to be caged or staked. They're just on the ground, sort of in a heap which creates lots of nice hiding places for insects as well. I suspect that he may be had another insect problem previous in the season, possibly aphids, which are very common in the vegetable garden, and he used a pesticide on his tomatoes to control the aphids, a common pesticide for that would be Malathion. Malathion, unfortunately kills lots of beneficial insects, including the ones that will kill spider mites. And so I've seen it happen in greenhouses. I've seen it happen in gardens before the gardener gets an insect pest an aphid pest uses melodyne with great success, the aphids are gone, and then all of a sudden you have a huge, huge spider mite problem. As for control, well it's very much the end of the tomato season. But I would if I really wanted to keep them growing, I would go in and spray them with water. They really dislike water, I might try to stretch the plants out it's going to be difficult, they're going to be big and heavy and they may have rooted in to the ground in multiple places. But you need to spray the water on top of the plant, and under the plant. There are other pesticides you can use for spider mites and that would include neem oil and insecticidal soap. It's just an incredible amount of webbing. I have never seen that much webbing from spider mites. Those are, that's a huge population of very busy little spider mites.

Farmer Fred: 27:29

I would think one strategy for controlling future mite outbreaks is clean up and get rid of all those infested plants. Don't try to compost them; just put them in the trash, right?

Debbie Flower: 27:40

spider mites stick their mouthparts into the cells and suck out the contents, which is why you get that stippling look those yellow dots. So they're the plants have been weakened. The season is winding down for tomatoes. Yes, I agree. Take them out and put them in the Green wastebin.

Farmer Fred: 27:56

As they say on Star Trek, "He's dead, Jim". So get rid of those tomato plants and start again next year with a nice clean bed. And remember, to kill spider mites, you need a mitacide, but actually, as you mentioned, a control of water applied dutifully on a regular basis can help control them.

Debbie Flower: 28:16

Yeah, that just changes the environment. And that would be a first step. It changes the environment away from something the spider mites like into something they dislike. And so they'll move out find another home, but you have to be persistent.

Farmer Fred: 28:28

There you go. Debbie Flower, thanks for answering some of our garden questions.

Debbie Flower: 28:32

Oh, it's a pleasure, Fred. Thanks for having me.

Farmer Fred: 28:37

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Farmer Fred 2: 29:30

the Garden Basics podcast is going to a winter schedule, maybe just like your favorite local nursery. November through January, Garden Basics will come out once a week on Fridays. Then, as the weather warms back up in February, we'll return to our twice a week schedule. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and leaving comments. We appreciate that you've included us in your garden life.