Posts Tagged: avocado
Avocado Field Day
You may have missed it, or you may want to relive it. Here's a video of the June 25 Avocado Field Day at Jackson Ranch in North San Diego County:
Field Day at Jackson Avocado Ranch
avocado cluster
New Avocado Herbicide
Rely® 280 Herbicide Available for Use in California Avocado Groves The California Department...
Winter Notes from an Organic Avocado Grower
By Shawn Martin, organic grower and CA Avocado Society Board member
It's never clear what winter will deliver to a coastal avocado grove on a steep slope, so the grower must be ready for whatever happens. And the main thing is rainfall. And Frost. And sometimes drought. And be ready for fire. And watch out for phytophthora. Some guidelines follow:
rain gauge
Avocado Meeting Soon
California Avocado Growers Seminars Series 2024
Scheduled Topics
February 15 (10 - 12 AM)
HOW TO MANAGE THE TREES IN A WET YEAR
Topics and Speakers
By Hamutahl Cohen, PH.D. Entomology Advisor, UC Cooperative Extension
PCA Panel on Thrips Management Under Different Weather Scenarios
Moderator Dr. Hamutahl Cohen
Caloptilia Updates
By Bodil Cass, Extension Subtropics Entomologist, UCR
Panel on Cultural Practices in a Wet Year
Moderator Dr. Ben Faber, PH.D. Advisor, UC Cooperative Extension
Hybrid Meeting
CAS Seminar 2-15
A New Avocado Race?
Persea americana is the botanical name for avocado. It's been traditionally subdivided into tribes or groups comprising the Mexican, Guatemalan and West Indian horticultural races. The races look, taste and even smell different, but they hybridize easily so, they are considered one species. All the breeding that is done to create more and different and hopefully better avocado trees and fruit and roots is done with these three races. Now, plant explorers have been looking in a different area of South America and think they have found a new race:
"Pleistocene-dated genomic divergence of avocado trees supports cryptic diversity in the Colombian germplasm" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11295-023-01616-8).
This study identified two ancient Colombian genetic clusters of avocados beyond the three traditionally recognized races. These cryptic groups were genetically different and presented minor heterozygosity scores, with possible origin from the West Indian group (alternatively, although less parsimonious, it could also be the case that the West Indian radiate from the Colombian group). The Colombian sub-populations are in two distinct geographic regions, the Andes and the Caribbean, which may reflect divergent local adaptation after the initial colonization from Mesoamerica during the Pleistocene. Exploring the avocado genetic resources in South America will allow identifying genotypes with superior characteristics adapted to diverse agro-ecologies, which may source the selection of new cultivars and rootstock genotypes.
It is a somewhat dense discussion of the process of identifying this new race, but it's a fun look at the sleuthing process.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11295-023-01616-8
Image: The now extinct giant ground sloth was considered one of the major agents of avocado seed distribution before humans.
ground sloth