About 95% of all avocados sold in the United States (and about 80% worldwide) are ‘Hass’. ‘Hass’ dominates the market because it behaves well in cultivation and produces ample quantities of consistently good fruit that can be easily harvested and transported. In other cases, the trees don’t produce a high enough yield to make them commercially valuable. In some cases, the fruits have thin skins, which make them too delicate for large-scale shipping. Many who have sampled these cultivars consider them to be superior in flavor to the ‘Hass’, but most have never appeared in markets. In addition to the familiar pear-shaped ‘Hass’ with its pebbly, greenish-black rind, the collection includes the larger and more rotund ‘Reed’ ‘Mexicola’, which resembles a gleaming black plum when it ripens and the shiny, long-necked ‘Pinkerton’. Superficially, these trees look identical, with only subtle differences in foliage and form, but the diversity of fruit shapes, sizes, colors, and textures is startling. The Shepherd-Brokaw Orchard was established in 2010, with heritage cultivars provided by the University of California South Coast Field Station and Ventura-based Brokaw Nursery, the country’s largest commercial producer of avocado trees. “This collection is an important living link between many communities, and our work with these trees reflects the expanding understanding of plant science.” “It is a rare and gratifying opportunity to work with plants that connect natural and cultural history so directly with Huntington’s legacy,” said Cryopreservation Research Botanist Raquel Folgado, who oversees conservation science projects on avocado and other wild plants at The Huntington. In addition to trees that remain from their initial trials, a special orchard comprises varieties that are rare in commercial agriculture, and The Huntington’s Conservation Laboratory maintains a collection of “test tube trees”-additional varieties and related plants in tissue culture. More than a century later, the avocado experiment continues in ways that would have astonished Hertrich and Huntington. If you are willing to stand the financial strain, I will be glad to make the experiment.’” He said, ‘Hertrich, do you know what these are? Do you think you could grow these here? Could we plant an orchard?’ I said, ‘I think we can grow them here, but I don’t know about the orchard. Huntington came out one afternoon with a dozen avocado seeds in his pocket. Soon thereafter I became associated with the Huntington interests. The following year I tasted the fruit for the first time but as it was a little overripe did not care for it. Huntington’s superintendent of grounds, recalled his initial encounter with an avocado tree: “When I came to California in 1903, I saw, for the first time, an avocado tree planted in the open. In a 1936 speech for the Los Angeles County Farm Bureau, William Hertrich, Henry E.
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