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dmullin88

Why do my healthy full grown avocado trees produce almost no fruit?

Dorothy
4 years ago

Greetings,


I have a haas avocado tree, and a fuerte avocado tree I planted maybe a dozen yrs ago, about 20 feet from one another. I purchased them both in 5 gal containers; don't know if they are grafted or not. They are both now huge (at least 14 ft tall I guess, maybe taller), and very very healthy looking. I am a beekeeper so there are plenty of pollinators nearby. And yet, this year we go one avocado off the hass and zero off the fuerte. So I am wondering what I am doing wrong, and have landed on two hypotheses:


Fertilizer:

One thing might be that I tend to not fertilize in the winter, but I see now that some nitrogen right about now (mid-winter) might be good. When I usually fertilize...a few times in the growing season...I use Miracle Gro Shake n Feed pellets which I think are 8-2-10. Should I use a nitrogen-only fertilizer at this time, or is there something else people can recommend?


Cold:

I am in USDA zone 9b, northern Santa Barbara county, southern California, USA. Just a little to my south, avocado trees thrive in Santa Barbara, which I think is zone 11. I live high on a hill where the cold night air tends to sink towards the valleys, so although I do get nighttime temps in the 30's F degrees during the winter, I am actually regarded as being in kind of a local "banana belt;" temps at our house don't go down nearly as low as what my neighbors on the valley floor get. Consequently, I almost never have frost damage on anything (well, my euphorbia "crown of thorns" recently got frosted pretty good) and I never bother to cover plants or bring plants indoors when frost is forecast. So there is no frost damage to my avocado trees that I have ever seen, BUT I am wondering if the cool winters (much colder than what they get just 45 minutes to my south in Santa Barbara) signal to the trees not to set fruit.


Any suggestions are very much appreciated! Can't change the weather, but can fix the fertilization.


Otherchuck



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