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Adjusting to a Smaller Fruit Load - 2000 Living with Fire - 1998 Avocado Record Keeping - 1996 Planting Trees - 1998 What Alternative Crops? - 1999 Windbreaks in New Zealand - 2001 What are our Groves Really Yielding?
This past spring with its cool temperatures has generally meant a poor fruit set for the avocado industry. Walking orchards in the Santa Barbara/Ventura area turns up trees with little or no fruit set.
The very fact that avocados can be grown in hard to get to places means that the trees are also in areas that are subject to wildfire damage. Recently several hundred acres of avocado burned in the Fillmore/Santa Paula foothills. The fire was fanned by high winds and low humidity.
Plop, plop. The sound of fruit dropping. Ever wonder how much fruit is lost from windfall or the tree thinning itself in order to carry the remaining fruit? We monitored 15 trees in a 5 acre block from January to harvest in September.
Although the total acreage of subtropical fruit trees is declining in Southern California, growers are replanting declining groves and switching over from old varieties to new.
In the 1950's Ventura County was the world's largest producer of walnuts with nearly 50,000 acres. Prior to walnut production it was a major producer of lima beans and sugar beets.
Most of the New Zealand avocados are grown in a coastal environment not unlike that of the Santa Barbara/Ventura area. Being coastal, growers have learned from past experience that wind protection is necessary to maintain fruit quality and tree performance for a range of tree crops.
The following information was compiled by Bob Brendler, our Farm Advisor, Emeritus. What he did was take the 1992 Ventura County Crop Report for 1992. Not the best year since we were still affected by the 1990 Freeze. He found the total acreage - 12926 - their total yield of avocados in tons - 1.
Avocados in June - 1992 Saline Waters - A Growing Problem - 2002 March in the Avocado Orchard - 1997 Avocados in Spring - 1996 Wet Weather Brings Pluses and Problems - 1995...
No matter where they grow in California, June is a month when avocados are being watered on a regular schedule. How regular that schedule is should be carefully reviewed by the irrigator.
