Gardening Care Tips

Are you concerned about saving your avocado trees from death? Nobody wants to let go of their trees after dedicating hard work to them. Back when I started my first avocado gardening, I lost quite a few trees. But over the years, I have gained more practical knowledge related to this issue.

Now I am a successful avocado gardener, and I know how to treat my trees properly. Hopefully, by the end of this article, you will get your answer about how to save a dying avocado tree.

First, you need to look for any symptoms that show your avocado trees are seriously damaged or diseased. Note down all those signs and make a blueprint to work on them. Apply gypsum and mulches, use fertilizer in the right proportion, and ensure proper drainage for your trees. Use fungicide as a last resort.

Continue to read the rest of the article to know more about how to save your avocado trees from death.

How Do I Know if My Avocado Tree is Dying?

Continue to check daily if your trees show any signs and symptoms that indicate they are damaged. Generally, you can get an overview of your tree’s health just by looking at the leaves. Please go through the following symptoms carefully.

• The leaves of the avocado trees are falling off while getting brownish.
• The upper part of the canopy has small and pale green leaves with brown tips. Moreover, they tend to fall off easily.
• If new avocado tree shoots grow, they easily turn brown and get off from the tips. Thus, the bare branches are only left after this happens.

Try to remember these symptoms of avocado trees, it will help you a lot to detect any damaged or dying trees. If you find any of them in your trees, you need to take quick action to save them from dying.

How Do I Save My Avocado Trees from Dying?

1. Take notes and consult the professionals

As soon as you notice any symptoms on your trees, your first task is to take notes of all of them. This will help you a lot to plan a step-by-step solution.

After identifying the problems, decide if you think you handle this on your own. Otherwise, seek out the professionals of your local gardening center.

Moreover, if you manage to find any specialists, consult them. You can also talk with avocado farmers nearby. They will further aid you to find suitable solutions related to your issues.

2. Give Protection from Excess Sunburn

Check your avocado trees daily to find out if any of the avocado leaves and branches have turned black or brownish. If you notice any black spots, it may be the result of excess sunburn.

This will eventually damage the chlorophyll of the leaves, slow down the fruit production rate and gradually lead the tree to death.

To fix this issue, you need to provide shade to your trees depending on the brightness of the sunshine. You can use cloth and apply white latex paint on the branches to protect them from Sunburn.

To get detailed information about this issue, read the article titled “How Much Sun Does an Avocado Tree Need” on our website.

3. Apply gypsum to prevent fungal diseases

Check your avocado trees daily to find out if any of the avocado leaves and branches have turned black or brownish. If you notice any black spots, it may be the result of excess sunburn.

This will eventually damage the chlorophyll of the leaves, slow down the fruit production rate and gradually lead the tree to death.

To fix this issue, you need to provide shade to your trees depending on the brightness of the sunshine. You can use cloth and apply white latex paint on the branches to protect them from Sunburn.

4. Use wood mulch to promote growth

Spread wood mulch around the base of your avocado trees. Covering up your trees’ base like that will help them to get a boost in growth and help to recover from diseases. The mulches prevent any formation of bacteria or fungal infection.

It will also help to keep the soil moisture intact. Make sure that the root area near the base is covered up properly.

5. Never overwater the trees

If you accidentally overwater any of your trees, it can easily lead to tree root rot. Before starting to rot, it will develop fungal and bacterial infections near the base.

As you continue to overwater, the fungal disease will get encouraged more and more leading to avocado root rot.

To prevent this issue, always keep track of your irrigation timing. The fungal spores hate dryer conditions. Make a regular schedule so that you don’t overwater or underwater any of your avocado plants.

As a result, the avocado tree root structure will get the perfect soil moisture it needs.

6. Check for excess water minerals

If your irrigation water has excess minerals in it like boron and chlorine, it can promote the growth of bacteria and fungus. It can also occur if you live near a sea or water source that has saltwater.

Check for any sign of salt accumulation. Try to identify this as soon as possible before your plants start to die.

Try to use rainwater for irrigation if you don’t want to face such issues. If no rainwater is available, make sure that you irrigate fresh water at the base of your trees. Even after your efforts, there can be many reasons why the trees are not getting better.

In this case, take a sample of the soil and irrigation water, and go to your nearby gardening center for testing. The professionals will test those and even provide you with feasible solutions.

7. Ensure adequate drainage

Leaving your trees standing on excess water near the base will make the soil soggy. And if the soil gets more wet day by day, the roots will start to rot being soaked in water. This happens due to the poor drainage system.

To ensure proper drainage around the root structure, you can dig drainage channels around it. You can make the soil loose around the roots to promote adequate drainage. Try to plant your avocado trees on sloping land. Moreover, you can also use pipes for channeling.

For avocado houseplants, always keep them in a container that has enough drainage holes at the bottom.

If you can execute this properly, the drainage structure will become more effective and there will be no fungal infection in the roots.

8. Use fertilizers in the right proportion

You have already learned that avocado trees are very sensitive to certain issues. One of them is the proper use of fertilizers. Your avocado trees must get the correct mix of nutrients. If the right balance of nitrogen is not available in the soil, it can promote the growth of pathogens.

Moreover, it will damage the overall health day by day and slow down the growth process.

Therefore, you must provide avocado fertilizer in the correct proportion. If you fail to determine this by yourself, consult a fellow gardener.

You can also take a sample of your soil to the local garden center to test and determine which nutrients are missing.

In addition to maintaining the right proportion, make sure that the fertilizer quality is high. To get more information, read the article titled “When to Fertilize Avocado Tree” on this website.

9. Use fungicides as your last resort

Even after you have tried your best to revive your dying avocado tree, things may go wrong. In this case, if you want to apply multiple treatments at a single time, buy some good-quality fungicide.

But make sure to consult with a specialist to know about the correct application of fungicide.

If done properly, it will help the trees to recover and promote growth by eliminating harmful pathogens.

Final Words

Saving avocado trees from death is not an easy task, so work hard to accomplish this. Remember, preventing such issues earlier will keep your plants healthy and stop any fungal disease from spreading.

So, stay dedicated, and hopefully, your trees will recover soon to provide you with delicious fruits in all seasons, summer, winter, and spring.

Are you worried about your avocado leaves turning brown? Just a few years ago, I faced the same problem when I started to grow avocado trees in my garden. But over the years, I have learned enough practical knowledge to provide you with an elaborate answer. So, I hope that after reading this article, you will find a suitable solution to your problem.

The prominent reason for leaf browning is excessive salt accumulation. That happens due to excess chloride in your irrigation water. In addition, anthracnose disease, root rot, mineral deficiency, inadequate irrigation, etc. can turn avocado leaves brown gradually.

To prevent all these issues, you need to leach out your avocado trees. Approach any of the two leaching methods mentioned below. In addition, check your soil and irrigation water carefully to prevent any harmful pathogen from harming your trees. Continue reading the rest of the article to get detailed information about this.

Five Reasons for Avocado Leaves to Turn Brown

You will find five significant reasons other than bright sunshine responsible for your avocado leaves to turn brown. Read about these five issues carefully and find out which one matches the condition of your trees.

1. Excess Accumulation of Salt

If you live in a region near to a sea or a river that is the source of salty water, there is a chance that your irrigation water for avocado trees will have excess chloride in it. For Southern California of the United States, you will find that most of their water comes from the Colorado River. This may create an issue of salt accumulation.

If you don’t notice in time, this will result in significant damage to your trees. As symptoms, it will appear as burned leaf tips causing an early fruit and leaf drop due to salt accumulation at leaf edges. In addition to your irrigation, shallow watering, improper fertilizer application, soil moisture deficiency, etc. may cause salt accumulation in your avocado leaves.

To put an end to this issue, you need to leach out the excess salt from the root. In this case, you can try watering your trees as close to the soil surface as possible. Most people repeat this process after every 3 or 4 weeks.

2. Inadequate Irrigation

It is very crucial for you to remember that your avocado trees can get brown-tipped leaves during the fall season if they receive inadequate soil moisture. Your tree can only take a certain amount of chloride, any overconsumption or less consumption is both bad for its health. This can also happen if the area you live in gets less rainfall. To prevent this issue, always make sure that the water you use for irrigation has enough nutrients especially minerals. So, check carefully for brown leaves and keep track of your irrigation daily.

3. Anthracnose Disease of Avocado

Notice if your avocado trees have leaves that have turned yellowish. If you don’t check daily, the leaves may get tip burn and later turn brown. This disease in particular is known as avocado anthracnose. It is caused by the fungus known as Colletotrichum gloeosporioides.

If you continue splashing water to the canopy after this, the fungal spores will spread more. As a result, it will cause infection to the fruits and twigs too. You may even notice lesions on the shoots and fruits, fruit drop, fruit decay, etc. which will ruin your trees’ overall health.

To prevent this problem, you need to perform pruning once in a while to remove any damaged part of the tree. Try not to prune in cold weather, this may lead to stunting and slow down the growth process. To know more about the pruning process, read the article titled “How to prune an avocado tree” on our website.

4. Deficiency of Iron

Check properly if your soils are alkaline or not. If you are not sure about this, consult a soil specialist or take a sample of your soil to the local garden center. If there is alkaline soil near your trees, it may result in iron deficiency. You will notice the symptoms like tip burn, yellowing of veins, leaf drop, etc. Make sure your soil is not too alkaline. Never encourage poor soil drainage at the base of your trees, it may also result in iron deficiency.

5. Root Rot due to Pathogen Attack

Notice the canopy of your trees carefully. If you find your leaves to be pale, wilted, and have brown tips, there is a chance that your trees are suffering from avocado root rot. In general, it is caused by the Phytophthora cinnamomi algae. It is a soil-borne water mold and one of the worst plant pathogens.

If your avocado trees are affected by this pathogen, they will face slow growth, resulting in smaller canopy and fruits. It may also have significantly smaller roots that are unable to provide enough nutrition to the upper portion of the tree. As a preventive measure, apply enough fungicide to your trees so that the growth of pathogens does not continue near the roots. Make sure you plant those trees on a well-drained site. In addition, take care so that the soil at the base of the tree is not soggy.

Why Does Browning Occur on Indoor Avocado Leaves?

Even after you work so hard on your indoor avocado plants, sometimes the avocado leaves will turn brown due to dry air which has fewer water molecules. During the summer season, your indoor humidity usually falls. And if that air becomes very dry, evapotranspiration occurs i.e. the leaf cells start to lose water more and more. The small and thin leaves of your plants tend to lose more water particles as a result. Slowly, their cells start to die and that initiates leaf browning.

To put an end to this problem, you must increase the humidity near your trees if you feel the air is too dry. If you love your plants so much, then you should buy a humidifier as soon as possible. Using that, try to keep the humidity level in the range of 45% to 55% nearby your plants. This will keep your young leaves enriched with water molecules. Therefore, your plants will stay healthier, and the leaves will stay greener in all seasons, summer, winter, and spring.

Leach Out your Avocado Trees to Prevent Browning

You will find two widely known methods for leaching. One is to use micro-sprinklers and the other one is to add “leaching fraction”. Most farmers apply the first method for better results. But if you ask your fellow gardeners, most of them will talk about the second method if they do not have micro-sprinklers in their garden.

If you have micro-sprinklers available in your garden, use them to run water to the base of the trees for up to 24 hours. Continue to do this once a month for July, August, and September. If your trees are older and more mature, then this method of leaching will be more suitable than the second one.

The other method that you can apply is the addition of “leaching fraction” to your trees. Here, you do not have to use any micro-sprinklers or run continuous water for 24 hours. All you need to do is add a little extra water portion each time you irrigate. But note that this extra portion should be no more than 20 percent of the regular irrigation. You will find this method very useful if your trees are younger.

Final words

Avocado leaves show a variety of symptoms to certain diseases and changes, as it is one of the most sensitive gardening fruit plants. As a good gardener, it is your responsibility to check your plant condition daily to know about its overall health. If you manage to spot leaf browning earlier, you will be able to treat this condition before your plants die or develop fungal diseases. So, irrigate your trees with enough nutrients and take preventive measures before anything goes wrong. Consult a soil specialist and keep in touch with your fellow gardeners for more experience.

Are you an avocado gardener and concerned about how to prune your trees? Although it may seem a little tough in the beginning, don’t worry.

Gaining some practical knowledge and experience over time, you can prune your trees like a professional gardener. In this article, I’ll share with you what I have learned over the years about how to prune an avocado tree.

First, you need to select the proper tools to start the pruning procedure. Then utilize these tools to approach a variety of pruning methods to reshape your trees.

In addition, you must consider the ideal timing, extensive sanitization, and preventive measures for a better outcome. Continue to read the rest of this article to know more about this.

Select the Best Tools Related to Pruning

1. Hand Pruners

Get yourself some good hand pruners. It will come in handy for branches that are less than 2.5 cm or one inch in diameter.

If any unwanted smaller branches grow in the canopy, it will become a barrier for the tree to let through the sunshine.

So, the earlier you cut them, the better it will be for the trees. These kinds of tools are comparatively smaller and will perfectly fit your hands while pruning. You will find them vital for removing or trimming any small branches in the canopy of the tree.

You can also buy specialty hand pruners online or from the market. They are specially made with rounded tips so that you do not damage any fruits while pruning.

2. Protective Gloves and Sun Hat

You may need to stay out in the sun for a longer period while pruning. In this case, by yourself long-sleeved casual clothes that can be washed easily if they get dirty.

In addition, use a visor or sun hat to protect your skin from sunburn. You can also wear gloves to protect your hand from getting bruises while pruning.

3. Strong Ladder

For easy access to the canopy of the trees, you may consider taking a strong ladder with you. If the ladder is made from steel, it will be strong enough and last long. For extra precaution, you can take help from someone who will hold the ladder for you.

It will help you stabilize as you trim the branches. I recommend you buy an extendable steel ladder that will help you to reach the top of the tree.

Because the canopy of the tree gets so congested sometimes, it may become hard for you to reach the top.

In this case, just extend your ladder if you can to finish pruning the upper part of the tree.

4. Hedge Shears and Loppers

Buy Hedge Shears for trimming the excess leaves on the trees. You can also use loppers to cut branches thicker than 2.5 are 1 inch. You can find wooden hedge shears available on the market.

The loppers will help you a lot in removing any large branches acting as a barrier at the base. While making any major cuts, try to keep them within the line of the tree trunk’s contour.

5. Sharpening tools

Don’t overuse these tools, otherwise, they may become damaged or dull. Keep sharpening them often, this will come in handy while pruning.

Clean your tools before pruning:

The pruning tools you use, for example, loppers and hand pruners may contain fungus and bacteria. So, if you don’t clean them before pruning, your trees might get affected.

Also, you need to clean the tools between each pruning, because you don’t want a healthy tree to get infected by another tree.

To avoid any infection, spray all your tools with disinfectant. Take a spray bottle and fill it up with disinfectant spray. You can use rubbing alcohol or diluted bleach here.

Carry this bottle with you and don’t forget to clean your tools as you move from one tree to another.

Know the correct time for pruning

To prevent shock, you should do major pruning only during early summer or spring. The ideal time for pruning is the initial weeks of summer and spring. You can prune back the branches in spring to promote an overall regrowth of the trees.

In most cases, summertime pruning enhances the capacity for regrowth. As a result, the trees can grow taller and wider.

I recommend you to prune heavily only in warmer temperatures, especially in summer. Because if you cut back excessively during the heavy winter weather or fall season, the avocado trees may get exposed to frost and cold temperatures.

This will further slow down the fruit growth process and even damage the tree. Overall, try to do light pruning throughout the year.

Approach different methods to prune your avocado trees

Trim the canopy where necessary:

As your avocado tree grows faster, it will have a wide and thick canopy of leaves, which will eventually stay hung at the bottom of the branches. In this case, you need to thin out or cut back a smaller portion of the canopy so that the branches at the bottom receive adequate sunlight.

You can cut in such a way that the tree becomes pyramidal or conical. But make sure that you do not clear excess portions because it will expose the tree to direct sunlight that may lead to sunburn.

If you can execute this process properly, this will clear out space in the canopy and create windows for better air ventilation.

Try reshaping the trees:

If you notice that your trees are becoming too wide, you may need to reshape them. Use your loppers to cut off excess side branches. Try to focus on the smaller ones and prune them on each side.

Maintaining a conical shape will provide you with the best sun exposure. Do not prune too much or you may end up damaging the tree which will slow down the fruit growth.

Also, watch out if the branches start to tangle with one another resulting in a blockage of irrigation and mowing.

Trim the extra branches at the top:

As you plant a new avocado tree, you will notice that it doesn’t have a solid root system yet to support any extra height. In this case, utilize your loppers and trim the top branches of your trees to control their height.

The procedure may even take up to 4 years to finalize. But try to do it slowly, a maximum of one branch each summer. If done correctly, you will reduce a significant amount of stress from the tree.

Cut off the dead branches:

Check the trees properly and find out if there are any dead branches. If you keep them like that, they will do no good. So, take out your loppers and pruners to cut them off.

Make sure to clear the portion above the tree trunk. But be careful that sometimes minor frost damage can make a branch look like a dead one. Therefore, inspect properly before cutting off any branches.

If you can execute in the right way, your trees will grow more healthy branches, resulting in growth promotion.

Trim the water shoots causing imbalance:

Sometimes you will notice that thick and leafy water shoots grow before avocado flowers start to show up in the spring. These shoots grow in the bark vertically. If you do not remove them, they can cause an imbalance in the trees.

So, before the flowering starts, take your hand pruners and trim these leafy shoots. In this way, you can keep the trees healthier by controlling their lateral growth.

Repair broken branches by cutting off:

If you experience any strong wind or storm recently, make sure to check your trees to find any broken branches. These broken branches will do no good to the overall health of the tree.

So, you need to start removing them as soon as you spot them. Take your hand pruners and loppers and cut off any broken branches from their base.

If you keep doing this from time to time, the tree will get more chances to recover after a disaster and get a boost for its overall growth.

Cut off any overgrowth of wild branches:

Check properly if there is any excess growth of lateral branches that can be a barrier for the trees to stand vertically. Also, spot the wild growth of branches that may become a problem in the future.

In these cases, use your loppers and trimmers to trim them or completely cut them off while they are still small. Do not wait too long or they may become big and difficult for you to cut.

So, trim them off from the top and lower portions in time and you will remove a significant amount of stress from your trees.

Consider these precautions before pruning

Do not over-prune your avocado trees. Just because you want to relieve your trees by removing stress does not mean you need to do heavy pruning.

In most cases, over-pruning will cause your fruit trees to get damaged and that will take a longer period for recovery. It can even lead to stunt, fruit loss, sun damage, excess leaf growth on horizontal branches, and frost injury.

Consider the season and surrounding atmosphere carefully before heavy pruning.

Wash your hands and tools with disinfectants properly before pruning. This will prevent any infections, bacteria, or germs from spreading from one tree to another.

Do not panic if your avocado fruit production is less during the pruning season. It is quite natural, and you do not need to do anything about it.

While the pruning season gives you less output, you will surely receive a higher number of fruits in the next season.

Final Words

Avocados are very sensitive to pruning. Make sure to take preventive measures before you start pruning avocado trees. If you need any help, contact your nearby fellow gardeners and local garden centers.

They can help you with your field knowledge and experiences.

If you follow the proper pruning procedures and execute them in due time, you will surely receive an abundance of fruits during all seasons, including summer, winter, and spring.

Have you started growing avocados but don’t know when to pick avocado from tree? I had this same question in mind when I started producing avocados as houseplants.

But over the years, I gained enough experience to answer this question. In this article, I will write about when you should pick avocados from trees based on my practical knowledge.

You will find the months of August to September most ideal to harvest avocados. But do not pick all the fruits from trees at once. Pick a few fruits that are the largest and wait for a week. If those fruits ripen properly and become soft and readily eatable, then you can start harvesting avocados.

But keep in mind that the first few fruits you pick from the tree may not ripe as expected. If they shrivel, become rubbery, or even start to rot, you can easily conclude that the fruits of your mature trees are not yet ready to be harvested.

So, continue to pick a couple more largest fruits after one week and keep testing until you get your perfect fruits to harvest. To know more about the avocado harvest season, time of maturity, ripening period, tests for harvest, etc. continue to read the rest of the article.

Harvest time for avocados produced at home

If you produce avocado indoors, or in your garden, you are most likely to select any of these three varieties:

• West Indian avocados
• Guatemalan avocados
• Mexican avocados.

Your avocado fruits can be of many shapes, it can be round, pear-shaped, or oblong. The texture of the skin can also vary, it can be reddish-purple, deep purple, greenish-yellow, or simple black.

To harvest avocado, make sure you know your region and climate properly. Among many types of avocados, the Haas variety is one of the most commonly cultivated cultivars.

It usually becomes ready for harvest during February, but it can even extend up to September. You may find the local weather, fertilization process, and flowering pattern of the tree responsible for a variety of outcomes.

As a home gardener, you should remember that the extended flowering of fruit might result in different stages of fruit maturity for your trees.

So, you may face difficulties to determine the correct avocado harvest time. In this case, pick a couple of avocados from your trees and check if they are ripe enough.

Once you get the correct fat content and softness from the sample fruits, you can be sure that the whole tree has enough ripe avocados.

Harvest time for commercially produced avocados

You need to decide the harvesting time for each avocado cultivar by considering the time of year and the weight of the fruit. If you accidentally pick a lot of avocados while they are immature, it will result in a significant loss to your business.

So, avoid harvesting any avocados when they are shriveled or rubbery.

If you live in the United States, especially in Florida, your avocados will rip at warm temperatures of 60 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. For the West Indian avocados, make sure to maintain a temperature of 55 degrees Fahrenheit while storing them.

It is also applicable to other Floridian cultivars. Don’t store fruits at any temperatures below these, otherwise, the skin and flesh will be discolored and produce an unusual flavor.

Maturity Seasons of Common Avocado Varieties

• January to March – Bacon, Santana
• April to June – Edranol, Hass, Mesa, Rincon, Ryan
• June to September – Anaheim, Hellen, Nabal
• July to October – Mac Arthur, Reed
• October to December – Bonita, Daily, Duke, Jim, Zutano

The range of seasons indicated above is the approximate months for maturity. You will find many seasonal and climatic effects in your region that will result in variations in the maturity period.

You can follow the above-mentioned months for avocado houseplants. But in the case of commercial orchards, you need to determine the oil content through a dry weight test.

In this way, you can ensure better fruit quality in your house and market.

How to know if my avocados are ripe enough to harvest?

You will find several factors that can affect avocado harvesting. To know if your fruits are ready to harvest or not, first, you need to pick one or two mature fruits from the trees.

After picking those fruits, test several factors and then find out if the rest of the fruits hanging on the trees have ripened or not.

1. Observe the skin color:

If your avocados are ripe enough, they should have uniformly soft flesh and be readily eatable to consume. As you find varieties of avocados, taking color as an indicator of ripeness will not be a good barometer.

Different varieties may show different color changes as time passes by. It can be from yellowish green to reddish-purple to black. It may have brown spots or dark spots. The seed coat can change color from ivory to dark brown too.

For example, the Hass variety starts as dark green, then turns purple-black. If you are experienced enough, you can detect these changes easily to start picking fruits for consumption.

2. Check if they are soft enough:

Instead of getting soft, if the fruits shrivel and become rubbery, they are not ripe yet. Mature fruits have a good consistency, are not too tough, should not be bitter, and do not shrink outside.

So, wait for a few more weeks to get the perfect softness and then harvest. To find out if the fruit is soft enough to eat, hold the fruit in the palm of your hand and squeeze gently.

If the flesh moves with slight pressure it is soft enough to eat.

But if any crop has thick skin or hard shells, it will be tough for you to determine if they are soft inside or not. In this case, remove the button from the stem and gently insert toothpicks through the opening.

If the toothpicks go smoothly through the stem without applying much pressure, you can conclude that the fruit is soft inside.

3. Check for adequate oil content:

If you leave the fruits hanging on the tree, the oil content inside the fruit will gradually grow higher. Remember, the higher the fat content, the better the fruits will taste.

On the contrary, leaving them for too long on the tree can generate excess oil contents resulting in rancid fruits.

But if you manage to pick fruits having the perfect oil content, the inside of the fruits will be smooth as butter and have a nut-like flavor.

4. Perform commercial dry weight test:

If you are a commercial avocado grower, you can perform a dry weight test on your fruits. A dry weight test measures the oil contents of your fruits that will help you to know the perfect time to harvest.

As a commercial grower, it is very suitable for you to do this test because you grow avocados in a larger portion, and you need to prevent losses of early picking.

If you find the oil content low, conclude that the fruit is still not ripe

How do I ripen avocados quickly?

If you pick fruits early from your avocado trees, there are high chances that they are not ripe enough. In this case, you have to apply some techniques to ripen those fruits.

Of course, you don’t want to waste any fruits, do you?

Place the avocados you want to ripen in a brown paper bag. Close the bag properly. The storage temperature should be your room temperature. You can also use newspapers to wrap around the fruits if you don’t have any paper bags at your home.

Hopefully, this will accelerate the ripening process naturally.

You can also add apple, tomato, or banana with the avocados for quicker ripening. In general, all ripe fruits contain a plant hormone known as ethylene. This ethylene hormone triggers the ripening of the fruits.

When you wrap around the avocado fruits with a newspaper or bag, it traps the ethylene gas from going into the atmosphere. As a result, the ripening process becomes a lot faster.

Be sure to check the bag daily. Notice any color and smell changes. You can also apply slight pressure on the fruits to check their softness. In this way, you can fasten the ripening process of avocados.

Note that some people can advise you to microwave avocados. But please don’t do this, because microwaving fruits can make them a little softer, but it will not make them ripe.

So, don’t ruin your beautiful fruits.

How to slow down the ripening process of avocados?

If you don’t want your avocados to ripen, or you want to eat them later, you need to extend the ripening period. To control this, put the fruits in the crisper area of your refrigerator.

This will slow down the emission of Ethylene gas. As a result, your avocados will ripen slowly.

Final words:

Avocado plants grow into evergreen trees and they give excellent fruits to your home. If you can grow avocados indoors, you can use them for seasoning various dishes, salads, and soups.

You can also make delicious guacamole. But all of these depend on the softness, color, and smell of the fruits. Therefore, you need to know when you should pick your fruits from the avocado trees.

If you can take control measures to get the perfect avocados, you can surely enjoy many simple and delicious dishes in your own home.

Have you already started growing avocado trees but don’t know how long they will take to bear fruit? I didn’t even have the idea when I started gardening and producing avocados as houseplants. In this article, I’ll write about how long your avocado trees might take to bear fruit based on my practical knowledge gained over the years.

You can grow avocados from either seed or young plants. If you choose to buy a grafted young plant from a nearby nursery or local garden center, it will probably take 3 to 5 years to give you fruits after planting. On the other hand, if you grow avocado from seed, it will take from 5 to 15 years for the tree to become mature enough to give you fruits.

Keep in mind that more factors can influence the fruit production rate of your trees. Your surrounding environment, local climate, frequent watering, fertilizer application, etc. can affect your trees.

If you can manage to nurture your trees properly, you will receive an abundance of fruits throughout the year. So, continue to read the rest of the article to know about these factors.

How much avocado fruit does a mature tree produce per year?

Once your avocado trees become mature after five to seven years, you can expect around 200 to 300 fruits from each tree. But keep in mind that this number is not constant for all upcoming years. In some seasons, you may get more than the expected amount, while in some seasons you receive less.

You will find a lot of environmental factors responsible for this, even if you take the same care through summer, late winter, and spring.

How much avocado fruit does a mature tree produce per year?

The prominent reason why your trees are taking along to give you fruits is you started to grow trees using avocado seeds. If grown from seed, it will take up to 15 years to become mature trees compared to grafted young plants that take a maximum of 5 years to mature.

You can always use any leftover seed to grow young plants which would eventually turn into bigger trees day by day. But keep in mind that if you grow avocado trees from seed, it will take a very long period, which may seem tedious and worthless after some period. So, be patient and don’t lose hope even if your trees take a longer time to grow from avocado seeds.

If you grow avocado trees from seed using toothpicks, you are most likely to get the first few leaves and root systems developed. However, you may need to wait for a longer period before you can harvest fruits from those trees. This incident occurs due to the long juvenile phase of avocado trees.

In short, the juvenile phase is the time taken by trees to complete the development process where flowering does not occur. As a result, your trees will require more time to develop and grow flowers and fruits.

Look at a mature avocado tree, you will easily notice the big tree trunk and its canopy. For proper development of these parts, the tree synthesizes a lot of carbon during the photosynthesis process. This carbon is further used to grow any larger parts of the tree during the mentioned Juvenile phase.

It is only after the tree has become fully grown and matured, that it will start flowering and give you fruits every season onwards.

So always keep in mind about growing trees from seed along with their Juvenile phase. Besides, take precautionary steps against fungal spots, infection, or diseased roots.

In this way, you can get an abundance of fruits in all seasons, winter, summer, or spring.

What should I do to get more fruits from my avocado trees?

1. Select an ideal soil for the roots:

Choose coarse and sandy soil, not heavy clay soil or bulk soil. It is ideal for avocado trees. But take care that the soil is not very sandy. Moreover, the soil should not be very alkaline. Avoid any soils that have a higher level of salinity. The soil you select should have a good proportion of minerals, especially iron.

It should have adequate soil moisture and nutrients for the root system. If you can choose well-drained soil, then there will not be any issue related to root rot.

2. Maintain a regular schedule for water:

You must not overwater your plants. Moreover, a poor drainage system or lack of drainage holes can cause significant damage to your trees and weaken the root system. Weekly watering will help to keep the soil moist and wet enough.

Keep checking your soil from time to time with your hands to make sure that the soil surface doesn’t make a crumble. You can use around 20 gallons of water to keep the soil moisture intact during the irrigation season. Just make sure that you let the trees dry out themselves before watering them again.

You can keep track of your watering on a regular basis. This practice will keep your trees healthy throughout the year.

3. Place your avocado plants in a comfortable location:

Place the trees under bright light or in a sunny spot. But you need to make sure that the trees receive adequate bright light and shade according to the daylight. If you plant trees very close to each other, the place may become too tight for them.

Instead of getting enough nutrition, they might end up competing against each other which will result in slower growth. So, always maintain 7 meters between any two avocado trees.

Moreover, more protect your avocado plants from heavy winds, otherwise, it can damage the weaker buds and avocado seedlings.

4. Prune in time and don’t over prune:

You should cut out the terminal buds in some branches to enhance growth. To maintain the good size and shape of the trees, occasionally you can trim each branch. But don’t trim or prune too much, or you may end up damaging the trees.

Then the trees will require more time to recover, resulting in a delay in fruit production.

5. Fertilize in correct proportion:

Fertilizing the trees during the initial 3 years after plantation will help to boost the growth. Each year, you can fertilize them about six times. You can use a minimum of 1.5 lbs of fertilizers per application.

In the first five to seven years of growth, you will eventually use up to 20 lbs of nitrogen per tree. Make a mixture of essential earth minerals like Boron, Zinc, Molybdenum, Manganese, etc., and spray near the stem of your trees.

If done properly between the regular intervals of April to August, your plants will get a fruit size enhancement. Any nitrogen-rich fertilizer will keep your plants healthy and increase the quantity and quality of the crop day by day.

6. Use varieties of flowers for pollination:

You must have already known that avocado trees bloom two varieties of avocado flowers in general. They depend on the flowering pattern: A-type or B-type. If you can manage to plant trees that contain both types of flowers, you will surely receive a higher number of fruits at the end of the season.

The more pollination happens, the more fruits you get. For effective pollination, keep the avocado trees at warmer temperatures, because cold temperatures influence the pollination process.

7. Check local temperatures daily:

Although you must keep your trees under direct sunlight after plantation, don’t continue this forever. Your trees need to receive both sunlight and shade from time to time. Otherwise, too much sunlight can burn your branches and leaves. Maintain a warm temperature between 70 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit near the trees.

If this temperature goes down or crosses this limit, your trees will have a significant risk of sun damage, or the growth process will slow down. This will result in less fruit production.

So, always remember to check and maintain an ideal temperature near the trees.

How to know if my avocado fruits are ready to pick?

If you don’t want ripe fruits to stay on the trees, you can pick a couple of them and ripen them as time passes. Instead of getting soft, if you find them rubbery, then be sure that they are not mature enough yet.

You can maintain a schedule or mark on your calendar to keep track of when your fruits will soften. After you find your perfect fruits, you continue picking from your trees as much as you want.

The taste and softness of your fruits will depend on the soil and environmental conditions. In some years, it will be better while in other seasons you may receive worse. You will find the oil content of the fruit increasing throughout the season as you pick more fruits from the trees.

Some species of avocado turn rancid if they have too much oil in them. So, don’t let your fruits stay for too long on the trees, it is good to pick first and ripen later.

How to stop avocado trees from dropping fruit?

Although you cannot count every flower precisely, each avocado tree produces around 1 million flowers. But you will get only 100 to 300 pieces of fruit per tree. That means only one fruit in 10000 has a success rate to become mature.

Sometimes, you may see that after a certain growth of fruit, it will drop before getting matured. But don’t worry, this is quite natural.

However, you don’t want any good and fertilized fruit to drop from your trees before consumption. So, you need to nurture your trees properly to ensure them. Make sure you do not stress the trees by overwatering them.

Allow cross-pollination through A-type flowers and B-type flowers because cross-pollinated fruits have a higher potential to stay on the tree.

Never use excess fertilizers especially nitrogen during the initial planting stage. Because excess use of fertilizers never does good to your trees, it will only encourage the dropping rate of fruits.

Contact your local garden centers or nearby fellow gardeners to get help if any issue occurs.

Final Words:

Avocado fruits can be very sensitive to certain environmental factors. Although you cannot control those factors, you can nurture your trees properly.

If you grow avocados from seed, you need to be patient and optimistic to get fruits. Try to do your best from your side, and pray so that mother nature stays with you. Hope you got a clear understanding, of how Long does an avocado tree take to bear fruit?

If everything goes right, you must get a good production of fruits from your trees in no time.