The United States of Avocado | Hacker News Reader

The United States of Avocado

tastecooking.com

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Most folks who live in California can grow more avocados than they can possibly eat. If you don't have a tree, you should get one. I would highly recommend against any of the varieties listed in this article. Your best bet is Hass -- grown at home it's way better than what you get at the store -- or Reed. Check out your local California Rare Fruit Growers chapter for more rare varieties that do well in your area.

Where in California are you? Will now buy a Hass tree for my backyard in Redwood City and report back. The avocados are always so bad at the stores.

I've grown and grafted Avocado trees in both Northern and Southern California. Hass, Reed, and many other good types will fruit well in Redwood City and virtually all of the Bay Area.

The only areas that can't grow Avocados are the Sierras. It's even possible to grow them in Humboldt:

https://www.epicenteravocados.com/varieties/version-2-2/

What time do they start showing flowers? I want to plant a few here in SoCal but I'm at around 3k elevation and we get an annual March snowstorm that likes to kill off any plant that start to show early.

They usually flower in Spring, whenever that is for you. It's cultivar and temperature dependent. Some varieties like Carmen will even flower multiple times a year (though Carmen isn't one of the more cold hardy types). Bonny Doon is a good cultivar to consider if you get some mild frost each year. If you go below 20 degrees, though, you'd need to protect the tree during the cold snap.

I have a friend who has an avocado tree in redwood city, squirrels eat all of his avocados before he gets a chance.

Yeah, that can be a separate issue with any fruit tree. There are a bunch of options, but it depends on how much effort you want to put in. (Though all the options are worth it compared to buying fruit from the store.)

It's definitely hard mode, we already have to have a mesh around the eggplants, tomatoes, etc and have a black walnut tree... We'll find a way :)

Stanford has avocado trees in the quad, IIRC. Redwood City should work just as well. I need to get my hands on the Gem variety due to 100+ extended summer heat in my neck of the woods. Even then, the leaves might burn without a larger shade tree nearby.

GEM isn't worth growing -- it's not that good of a fruit. Hass does just fine even in high heat. Just plant the tree in a spot that gets some afternoon shade.

Huh, avocados require tonnes of water and California has recurring droughts.

> Huh, avocados require tonnes of water and California has recurring droughts.

California has abundance of solar capacity deployed, to the point of negative prices of electricity around noon ([1]), which means more electricity is produced more than consumed. California should become serious about utilizing the wasted energy on desalination.

While it's important to do desalination responsibly without creating dead patches of the ocean from brine, it's an engineering challenge that has technical solutions, not a miracle that we can't have.

1. http://www.energyonline.com/Data/GenericData.aspx?DataId=20 (you might need to specify the date range to see a graph with negative prices around noon)

those negative power prices are doing alot for generating water from mana

> those negative power prices are doing alot for generating water from mana

I honestly fail to understand what you mean. Care to rephrase / elaborate?

For instance, it's 9:30am in California, and a lot of coastal locations show negative prices for electricity: https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/prices.html

It will be like that until 2pm or so, which gives 4.5 hours to do useful stuff either for free or very cheap (as obviously, the prices will go somewhat up, if demand increases).

what's that have to do with water?

Desalination costs are dominated by energy costs. And I am making a point that California is in a perfect position to solve its water problems with the excess of solar capacity by using it to desalinate ocean water during the time of day when energy is essentially free.

Sorry for not being clear.

Yeah, desalination is perfectly aligned with solar energy availability both on a daily and annual cycle: More water needs during the day, more sun during the day. More water needs during the summer, more sun during the summer.

Are you explaining it to yourself?

Desalination plants are like many energy production facilities; they have significant ramp-up and ramp-down times. They can't just ramp up more when energy is cheap and ramp down afterwards.

I mean, I broadly agree with you that California should build more desalination plants, I just don't think the marginal price of desalinated water will be free.

Easy to water a backyard tree with a laundry to landscape greywater setup.

I love avocados and lived several years in San Diego where the trees are ubiquitous and avocados are free. They are actually lovely trees generally though quite large. No one can deny that the marketing around avocados has been a huge success.

People are overthinking it. America has a large range of territory where avocados will do well. San Diego, with its Mediterranean climate that is more ideal than the actual Mediterranean, produces excellent avocados, but as the article points out, most avocados are produced in Mexico, which shares a climate with a huge swath of the southern US and translates to northern Africa.

Avocado ubiquity is possible. They also don’t really ripen on the tree, which makes them a flexible bit of vegetable. They have a lot of potential.

I don’t read anything about the large water footprint of growing (=consuming) avocado’s. Is this a theme in the US?

I live in The Netherlands, where avocado’s have grown in popularity too. We import them from Peru, I believe. A region that’s already facing water shortages.[1]

However (just did a Google search) when looking at nutricion value it seems to be doing ok. [2]

[1] https://www.savemoneycutcarbon.com/learn-save/how-much-water... [2] https://avocadofruitoflife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Th...

Same thoughts here from a fellow european. I actually stopped buying and eating avocadoes a couple of years ago because I read and heard about large avocado farms sucking up all the water in south america, leaving common people without water and other issues.

not that this is exclusive to avocadoes, but still.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/04/24/a-serious-risk-mex...

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/02/avocado-environment-c...

It is an there are, Avocado's aren't as high on that list here because they can grow naturally in SW USA. There is a greater concern with almonds and alfalfa in the area.

You guys, you need to try "Avocado and Vegemite sandwich's"

Its amazing easily my fav combo with avo's

Butter or no butter?

Yeah, I want details on the bread too.

Gonna try this tomorrow with marmite, will report back!

oooh noooo

marmite? From memory marmite is quite a bit sweeter than vegemite. I suspect this will not work

My wife ate at least one avocado and one kiwi per day while she was pregnant. My son then started eating them as soon as he could eat solid food. He still eat kiwis rather frequently, but he has had at least one avocado per day for the past five years since he started eating solids.

We rarely kept avocados in the house before my wife became pregnant and now we can never be without them.

Report back in 15 years if he turns out to be a genius.

Heightened levels of intelligence due to avocado should already be noticable. What's he built with LEGO, so far?

I don't know if he'll be a genius but he's definitely ahead of the curb development wise according to our neighbor that is a child psychologist. And my boy has also maintain at least 99.7th percentile in both height and weight. I'm pretty sure most of that is genetics but I make sure he gets plenty of fats and protein. He was 100th percentile in both for the longest time but I guess he's starting to fall behind a bit.

The article goes on about watery and/or mealy avocado. I've personally found the best way to avoid this, and get a more interesting, nuttier flavor, is to buy small avocados. I like the trader joe's "teeny tiny avocado" bags.

But, even if not labeled as such, I've had similar luck in other venues. Small is beautiful.

Come to Vietnam! There are so many kinds of avocado out here.

> According to the US Department of Agriculture, consumption of avocados in the United States has tripled since 2001, climbing to more than eight pounds per person each year.

Man, y'all ain't pulling your weight. I easily eat eight pounds of avocados a week. Thank god for globalization, they're available year round now!

> After getting laid off from a job, he went to work on it seriously, and he launched Primavera’s consumer website last May. Through it, customers nationwide can order a box of four pounds of avocados from their groves for $39 or sign up for a subscription plan.

Holy shit, that's why. It's like $5 per 2 pound bag at Trader Joes here.

I doubt I eat a pound in a year. Are you vegan/vegetation? I can't imagine eating that much otherwise, unless you have a very unhealthy obsession with guacamole...

You don't ever eat salads that have avocado in them?

I eat salads and avocados. I have to say the idea of combining them does not seem appealing to me.

then you're missing out, but to each their own

I love me a good Cobb salad.

1 pound is like 2 avocados. That’s very little tbh

Vegetation reporting in, can confirm I have no mouth with which to eat avocados.

Surely you can absorb it with your roots? That’s what I do to get those extra nutrients.

Harlan Ellison must have written a sequel about what plants screaming sound like.

> Are you vegan/vegetation?

No, quite the opposite in fact - I'm often on a protein sparring modified fast and avocados are the only thing that make it tolerable (I know it's cheating but I don't care). I actually don't eat that much guacamole, pretty much only at Mexican restaurants a few times a year. I eat avocado sliced, sprinkled with olive oil or lime juice and some salt & pepper.

A medium avocado is 200-300 grams so it's not that much, especially if you don't eat many carbs otherwise.

For years I would eat either a half or whole avocado a day. Why would you need to be a vegan/vegetarian to do that?

They are fiber and potassium rich with a lot of unsaturated fat, which adds to making them a great “dessert” if you eat them with a bit of olive oil, salt, and lemon.

For a different angle on the impact of the Avocado boom read “Forbidden Fruit: The anti-avocado militias of Michoacán“

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/11/forbidden-fruit-avocado-...

That's a good article. The different perspective from the locals in the area is a good thing to keep in mind. It's really cool to see local communities banding together to protect their lands and their own interests.

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