Avocado Plants

[fcgamer | 4,801]

One of my friends sprouted two avocado seeds, potted them, then gave them to me to look after. I have no idea where he got the idea for this, I can only guess he thought it would be a nice project to amuse myself with.

Anyways, although I'd like to add more green to my apartment (both the balcony and indoors....these will go outdoors due to toxicity to pets), I never really had plants before and have no idea about growing and maintaining avocado plants. Anyone done this before? I hope not to kill them.

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

Hard to grow in a container, probably wont survive indoors here (USDA ZONE 9b-10-  in the tropical? temperate climate of Taiwan YMMV).They generally don't give off fruit for 10-20 yrs unless you graft a mature node onto root stock. 

Edited July 21, 2023 by MrWunderful

[PII | 1,923]

I have several currently that I've sprouted and yeah, the general outlook is that a sprouted seed as opposed to a graft, is unlikely to produce fruit and if it does it will be of an inferior variety.  Although I will point out that I have eaten avocados from wild growing trees that are much larger, three or four times the usual size and also have very big pits that take up most of its bulk and the edible portion was maybe a centimeter thick at best and was also rather stringy but otherwise perfectly good.  So my guess is that if you get fruit from a sprouted seed you're going to get something like that.

They don't seem to take terribly well to pots or dry air.  I would recommend using a combination of soil that is very sandy along with something dark/higher quality.

Also, sometime shortly after it sprouts leaves you're supposed to cut the top (with the leaves) off because when they come back it will produce a more bushy tree-like canopy at the top.  If you skip this step it will tend to grow evenly spaced leaves all along the trunk.

I wouldn't say I'm a pro at this or anything, just someone who has been playing around with it for a bit now.  An old friend of mine with a green thumb had one in a pot that was very healthy, lasted a few years and probably would have lived a long time had he not left it outside in just barely freezing or near freezing weather which killed it.  They are pretty sensitive to cold and have zero tolerance for frost.

Edited July 21, 2023 by PII

[AirVillain | 500]

I like the idea of doing this but like you, would have no idea how to do it. 

Having avocados you could pick yourself would be pretty amazing. Good luck on this adventure. 

[Tulpa | 3,579]

They also need a shitton of water.

[Mega Tank | 986]

41 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

They also need a shitton of water.

Yea. I wouldn't mind trying an ecovado!