Clone Drone In The Danger Zone Skins

[Rafael Nowning]

Andtruthfully, even as I keep tasting new varieties of avocados that are interesting and delicious, the fruit from that tree that Carl Schmidt found in Atlixco, Mexico way back in 1911 remains my favorite too.

My own Fuerte avocado tree illustrates the reason Fuerte avocados are rarely sold in grocery stores anymore, and why most Fuerte trees in backyards are not recently planted but rather leftovers from a past era.

A final key factor that has been explored in the bearing of Fuerte trees relates to temperatures during flowering. It has been found that the fruit production of Fuerte trees is highly correlated with warm temperatures during bloom. More specifically, researchers observed that daily highs should be above about 70 and nightly lows should be above about 50 for good fruitset on Fuerte. And if the average is even higher, closer to 65, the better.

Fred Popenoe owned West India Gardens nursery in Altadena, and he hired Carl Schmidt to search for good avocados in Mexico. Schmidt took branches from the trees with the best fruit and shipped them up to California.

Some Fuerte trees have a very long flowering season. Most avocado varieties do most of their flowering in March, April, and May. But I have seen Fuerte trees begin to bloom as early as October. Here is a Fuerte tree in San Clemente with flowers on October 3, 2019:

Yet, Fuerte trees will often still be blooming as late as June. All this adds up to a potentially long harvest season, both on individual trees as well as from Fuerte trees in Southern California as a whole.

Early set fruit might taste good starting in November. I think of Thanksgiving as the day to start testing avocados from Fuerte trees. And even in June there can be Fuertes that still taste good. But the heart of the normal Fuerte harvest season is approximately January into April for most of Southern California.

I grafted a couple of branches of an A-type variety called Pinkerton into my Fuerte, and the first time those little Pinkerton branches flowered they set more fruit than they could hold. That is the power of Fuerte pollen.

In addition, Fuerte is an attractive tree for an avocado. Its leaves are deep green and they get less leaf burn in the fall and winter compared to some other varieties. I also find the red flecks on the new shoots of a Fuerte tree to be attractive.

Fuerte is also slightly tougher than some varieties during winter cold snaps. Just a few weeks ago, my yard dropped to 25 degrees one night and my Fuerte came through in better shape than my Hass, Reed, Lamb, and some others.

Ettinger comes from Israel. It is a green skin, roughly the same size as Fuerte, but a lighter green color. Seed is fairly big. Flavor is good, but not as good as Fuerte (to me). Texture is smooth and pleasing. Harvest season is basically winter.

Several years ago I bought some avocados from Costco imported from Chile. They had stings so thick and tough I returned them. I think the strings are veins and their size is genetic. It seems that the strings in Fuerte are thicker in the larger avocados. Also, at the end of the season for Fuerte the strings can get black especially where they converge at the bottom of the avocado. I had rats eating my Tahoe Gold and Pixie Tangerines, so I picked them all. Now I have rats eating my Hass. They chew the stems until they drop and then devour them on the ground. If you have a rat solution I would really like to know what it is. Bait does not work since they love the fruit more.

Two cats are an unbeatable solution for rats in an Avocado tree. last February, I noticed my female cat way up in the Fuerte tree early one evening, slowly creeping way out on a branch ( I did not see the rat she was stalking. All of a sudden, the rat jumped out of the tree and my black male came out of nowhere, caught it and ran off with it before it even hit the ground. From time to time, I have found dead rats on my doorstep (including this one about an hour later), but this was the only time I had witnessed their hunting technique. Rarely do I find an Avocado with a bite mark. Before I got those cats, rats would take a bite or two from dozens of Avocados in that tree..

We are about to start a house addition that will require cutting back part of the south facing branches (especially the low hanging ones) and we were thinking of laying gravel and patio stones under the tree which is currently just bare dirt. Do you think covering the dirt will jeopardize the tree or fruit production? Some of the roots stick out above the soil.

I have a Haase and a Fuerte. They are both grafted. I ordered them from a nursery in Covina about 20 years ago. They produced about 3 years after planting. Every year they produce over 200 avocados. They Haas more then the Fuerte but they both do very well. It is now June and we still have avocados to pick. The Fuerte is starting to produce baby avocados. Should I pick the remaining avocados before the new ones grow? We live in Covina

Hi Jon,

Girdling or ringing an avocado tree has been done for a long time, usually getting the results you get. The idea is that the sap flow is interrupted and energy is kept up high in the branch that is girdled, causing that branch to bloom profusely.

July 1, 2021 and we picked 10 from our Fuerte in Fullerton, CA. The tree was planted in 1971 and came from Walmart. I left a shoot from the root stock which produces 1-2 pound avocados of unknown variety. Same bloom cycle as the fuerte but bigger and smoother. Very tall tree, twice as tall as the Fuerte with no pruning.

I have exported fuerte 1 container 40 ft by sea and now is almost 38 days it has arrived to port of destination in refer container with atmosphere control please could tel me will it arrive safe as i see the time is alot almost 1 month and 8 days

i am moving from the santa clara, san jose area.

i am taking along 8 7- 9 year old fuerte saplings.

3 are just getting their first buds for fruit.

the tree that is the parent is about 80 years old and still produces hundreds of avocados each year.

the thing is this trees fruit is the size of a large mango or a papaya. they are at least three times or more the size of the hass.

i have heard the hass was developed from the fuerte by accident, but was nurtured and marketed because it grew faster than the fuerte? although my 80 plus year old tree produces fuit 2 times a year! furte always!

this happened to us one year due to heat stress. I think the squirrels were hopeful to get some moisture out of them during the heat wave too. Since then, we water nearly every day during the heat waves above 100 and it fared much better. Also, pick all the fruit off the tree from the previous year before it gets to full bloom in late winter. The tree will have more water/energy for the new buds.

Hi Greg, what an amazing blog! You are my hero! So lucky to find this. I have a young family on an acre in Escondido near San Pasqual Valley and we have put in lots of fruit trees over the past couple of years. Just starting with avocados. Wanted to to run it by you and see if I did it right: we are going with the trifecta of Reed, Hass, Fuerte. Because of space, I am planting them 8 feet apart on a slight southwest facing slope, right above a natural swale. I want to also use them as a privacy screen at the front of our property, so keeping them close is good, and will prune them to stay compact. Is that too close for Fuerte? We also have very poor clay silt with K deficiencies. I will be following your watering schedule and staking guidelines. Any tips?! Thanks again for all these resources!

I decided to put the Fuerte on the counter to try it. I know September is REALLY early to pick Fuerte (fruit set in spring 2022), especially in Santa Barbara. Well, I had it with lunch today and it was very good. Maybe a bit on the watery side compared to my just finished Hass (1 more still to eat), but it does have that nutty taste I saw mentioned above.

I think that the best way to avoid getting a drone and to give the best chances at a productive Fuerte is to buy a tree on a clonal rootstock that has proven productive for many different scion varieties. See my post on rootstocks: -rootstocks-what-do-they-matter/

Great article! I recently bought a home in SoCal zone 10b, with a mature avocado tree based on my research I believe to be a Fuerte. The tree was so loaded with fruit this year, that even after eating it at almost every meal, giving it away to family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors, there is still fruit on the tree.

My tree was covered in blooms in mid-March and just humming with bees buzzing around. Then we got some more rain in April and it seemed like most of the blooms ended up on the ground. Hoping we get another great year in 2020.

Hi folks, I grew up with 5 Fuerte trees on my parents property. All produced good crops and none of them had any real treatment to the tops of the soil over their roots. I tried an experiment on one tree in the tree in the corner of the yard. Rather than throwing out grass clippings, raked leaves, weeds and sticks, I put all of that green waste under the one avocado tree in that corner of the yard; about 2 feet high. Really big bugs and nice smelling black composted soil started forming after about a year. About a year after that we had more avocadoes being produced from that one tree than all of our other trees combined. You all may not have to rip out your seemingly non producing trees. Just give the trees what they are known for wanting: loads of green mulch above their roots. Your trees should pay you back kindly. Oh, the location was the Pasadena area.

Fuerte have a far superior nutty flavor to Hass in my opinion. The oil content is higher. I always enjoy turning someone on to a perfectly ripe home grown Fuerte, the response is always the same. Wow!

Often times late in the season the pits have already sprouted. I soak them, plant them in pots, and give them away to anyone who wants them. I want to keep this delicious species going and, who knows, maybe someone will leave some at my door in the future.

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