Avocado tree planted 1972 from seed

[sjollie]

This tree has produced great fruit but this year we are having a problem with limbs just breaking an falling off?? We have tried triming some but we lost another limb! Its scary no bad weather an so far no on has been hurt!

[shafaq1233]

This tree has produced great fruit but this year we are having a problem with limbs just breaking an falling off?? We have tried triming some but we lost another limb! Its scary no bad weather an so far no on has been hurt!

please tell me that from where i found avocado seeds in pakistan???

[applestar]

@shafaq1233 -- Can you buy avocados at the market? It's easy to grow them from seed. The only issue is that avocados must typically cross pollinate to fruit, so the offspring grown from seed has no guarantee of fruit quality. My understanding is that some avocados have female flowers that are receptive in the morning, and others are receptive in the evening, and the male flowers release pollen in the morning or evening. So you need both kinds. But if I lived where they can be grown in ground outside, I would try anyway.

Seed grown avocados take something like 7 years to start fruiting, I believe.
Commercial growers graft branches from desirable varieties to increase them so the fruit characteristics are the same and they fruit earlier.

@sjollie - I'm hoping someone else from avocado-growing areas will respond. But as a general fruit-tree question, are the limbs breaking because the tree is fruiting too heavily? Maybe thinning the number of fruits would help?

I'm guessing your tree produces good quality fruits? Do you know what kind of avocado it is? (description of fruit might tell us if you don't know). Also, if you only have one tree, is there another in the vicinity?
(curious about the cross pollinating issue) I have heard that polyembryonic mango (multiple shoots from a single seed) can self-fertilize and have been wondering if same is true of avocados.

[shafaq1233]

no, i don't even see avocado here dats y m asking that from where i get it???

[applestar]

This is very interesting.
@shafaq I assume you are in Pakistan? Quick search about avocado in Pakistan ONLY yields a leather goods manufacturer named avocado.

Initially, I misread your location and searched for avocado export to "mutan" --> Malaysia and ended up learning something new:

Avocado fruits are among the more expensive fruits in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. The fruits are imported from Australia and sold [...] to the few locals who have acquired a taste for them. The majority of Malaysians and Singaporeans think avocadoes are awfully bland, or just plain awful.

However, in the Malaysian state of Sabah, close to the Philippines, where there is a large population of immigrants from the Philippines, avocadoes are cheap, locally grown, and sold by roadside hawkers. The quality, size and shape of the locally-grown fruits is very variable.

But what interested me most of all was this little bit:

In all the books on growing avocados, we are told that single trees will not fruit because they need cross-pollination by another tree. The trees in Malaysia ignore this rule. Single trees often produce good crops of fruits. However, after having experimented with avocados for over 30 years, I can say they are extremely variable in behaviour. I have seen trees begin to fruit at 5 years, trees that did not fruit until after 10 years, trees that never fruited at all in 20 years. Fruits vary in size, shape, colour, smoothness / roughness of the skin, thickness of the flesh, quality of the flesh (creamy, lumpy, etc).

Src: https://tropicalhorticulture.blogspot.com/2007/05/avocados.html

I realize this doesn't help you at all. I noticed Pakistan tropical fruit industry is overwhelmingly about Mangos. Maybe avocado is considered unpalatable and worthless in your country?

[shafaq1233]