The wife made some guacamole last night, and I was looking at the pits thinking "Hey, those are kind of cool." Of course it all goes downhill once the gears start turning.




http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/seed/2002114535011263.html



Yup, I'm going to try to sprout some avocado pits and grow some potted avocado trees. They can't tolerate winters outside, but they can start bearing fruit in 3-4 years. The trick will be keeping them under 8' tall.  We'll see. This could be interesting. Maybe it will fail miserably, maybe I'll have a couple extra-large houseplants that give up a few avocados every now and then.

I've been pretty successful in sprouting avocados. I've never had one grow past 10" or so before it dies. Then again, I didn't spend much time reading about growing them, babying them, etc. Now, my coffee plant that I grew from seed is about 2 yrs old and nearly 15" tall –– growing indoors in TX. It stays on my desk and gets more attention than it needs/deserves. I do need to move it to a bigger pot and get a brighter light for it.

Good luck! And, of course, keep us posted!

sgt_seti

We had an avocado tree in our back yard, in S FL - it was nice when you needed one but never fun if you stepped in an old avocado. Couldn't tell if it was from the tree or our black lab

Will do. Right now, they're just hanging in the water, but I'll update when/if they sprout.



DangerJ - I bet!





 

I have about 400 Avocado trees on my property. The first problem with seedlings is that Avocado trees are grafted so that they will produce fruit, not saying that your seedling won't, but they typically dont, those that do, typically produce considerably less or fruit that doesn't taste as good.

Why not just buy a couple of Dwarf Haas trees?


Tom

Wow, I've got to think that 400 trees translated into 10's of thousands of avocados every year. Are you a professional grower/farmer?
This is just kind of a little experiment that came up because I saw my wife throwing avocado pits into the garbage, so I don't want to sink any money into it. Avocado trees have no business being in MN, so it's really one of those things that will be cool if I can pull it off, but no loss if it doesn't. The article makes it sound relatively easy, so I figured what the heck!
 

I have a small grove, but I would in NO WAY consider myself a "professional" grower!!! I  spend more on my grove than I make, but my trees are only about 4 years old so they are relatively young. I'll be happy when they just produce enough to pay for my water...

The seeds do germinate easily, I find them growing all over from fallen fruit.

Tom