All about avocado scientific classification, management practices, varieties

1. AVOCADO
Persea americana

2. Introduction
• Family - Lauraceous
• Species - Persea americana
• Avocado is a perennial plant
• It is a hardy plant.

3. • Avocado is medium to large ever green plant
• Known as a 'poor man’s butter’ to the King of Fruits
• Most varieties of avocado are oval or round shaped
with thick, rough green skin.
• The avocado is native to Mexico and Central
America
• Avocado or alligator pear also refers to
the fruit, botanically a large berry that contains a
single seed.

4. Major Growing Areas
• Kandy
• Matale
• Nuwara Eliya
• Badulla
• Kegalle

5. Soil Condition
• Need well-aerated and loose soil
• Limestone, sandy loam and decomposed
granite are the main soil types
• Avocado trees tolerate both acidic and
alkaline soils
• pH range should be 6- 6.5
• Compacted soils will affect root spread
• Refers slightly dry condition

6. Climatic Condition
• Grown only in subtropical or tropical climates
• Temperatures need 26-30 0C
• Minimum survival temperature is about - 4 °C
• Hot, dry conditions could result in low yields
because of fruit and flower drop
• A high humidity is desirable, because it
decreases stress conditions
• Rainfall exceeding 1 000 mm is desirable

7. Morphology
• Trees to 30m tall
• Leaves
– Narrowly to broadly elliptic
– Leaf blades 10-30cm long
– 3-19cm width
• Flowers
– 3-6mm long
– Yellowish green color
– Determinate and indeterminate type

10. • Root system
– Shallow root system
• Fruit
– pear-shaped,
– often more or less necked
– oval or nearly round
– yellow-green, deep-green or very dark-green,
reddish-purple, or so dark a purple as to appear
almost black, and is sometimes speckled with tiny
yellow dots,
– lossy or leathery skin

12. Varieties
• Pollock
• Purple varieties
• Fuerte
• Booth - 7
• Simmonds
• Tower 11

13. Pollock Simmods

14. Purple variety
Fuerte

15. GROWTH STAGES

16. Bud Development

17. Flowering
• Avocado flowers carry both male and female
reproductive organs
• Each flower opens twice over a two-day
period
• The first day as a female and the second day
as a male.
• Air temperature regulates the opening and
closing of flowers

18. Three requirements for a
successful fruit set
1. An overlapping of the flowering stages
2. Significant insect activity, including bees
3. Temperature is somewhat low

19. PRODUCTION OF PLANTING
MATERIAL
• Nursery management
– Poly bag nurseries are prominent
– Need proper drainage
– Seed should be treated with hot water for 30 min
– Apply fungicides and gypsum

20. Propagation
• Sexual
• Asexual or vegetative

21. Vegetative propagation
• Grafting is prominent
• Stem or branch may not be thicker than 2 cm
diameter
• Remove the top and bottom part of the
branch
• Two types of rootstock can be used
– the cultivar and the seedling rootstock
• cultivar rootstock is produced by vegetative
methods, Seedling rootstocks grow from seed

24. Crop Establishment
• Site selection
– Surface and subsoil drainage must be
excellent.
– Sloping ground with a porous top soil
structure may be unsuitable

25. • Land preparation
– Dig holes large enough to take the
root system comfortably
– Do not place fertilizers in the planting
hole
– Half fill the hole with soil and Fill the
hole with water

26. • Planting
– Planting space varies among varieties
– common planting space was about 20’x 15’ with
145 trees per acre

27. Management practices
• Mulching
– This should be loose, 10 to 15cm deep
– Oats, sorghum, mixtures of these with a legume
– Mulch provides organic matter, a valuable source
of tree nutrients and food for beneficial soil
microorganisms

29. • Tree training and pruning
– Little pruning is required
– regulate tree canopy size
– tree removal
• When yield decline immediately follows the removal of
productive trees

30. • Selective limb removal
– Limbs that are low, overlapping or growing up the
centre of the tree
– exposed limbs with white plastic paint
• Stag horning
– pruning a tree above the graft

31. • Fertilizing
– small amounts of fertilizers
– applicable on sandy soils
– Every 8 weeks apply a nitrogenous fertilizer
– Organic fertilizers are ideal, applied on top of the
mulch layer.
– Use 10 liters of matured poultry manure per tree
– From the third year apply an NPK mixture

32. • Irrigation
– 1800 mm per year rainfall
– Avocados are very sensitive to moisture stress,
especially during
• flowering
• fruit set
• fruit development
– Irrigation systems should be designed depends on
• number of trees per hectare
• soil texture and depth
• weather conditions
• trees’ growth cycle

33. – In orchard's basically drip irrigation techniques
– Required ammount 3 to 5ML per hectare
– Water stress can cause symptoms including;
• fruit drop
• ring-necking
• skin cracking
• salt burn
• In young trees, vegetative growth is reduced

34. Pest and Disease Management
• Common pests
– avocado leaf roller
– Avocado thrips
– Persea mites

35. Thrips attack
Persea mites

36. Pests
• Avocado thrips - Scirtothrips perseae
– Symptoms
• leathery patches and spread across fruit
• adult insect is orange-yellow in color with distinct
brown bands
– Management
• organic mulch about 6 inches
• if insecticides are to be applied

38. • Diseases
– Anthracnose
– Scab
– Stem-end rot
– Phytophthora root rot
– Black streak
– Bacterial soft rot
– Sun blotch
– leaf spot

39. Anthracnose
Scab

40. Diseases
• Scab - Sphaceloma perseae
– Symptoms
• Oval or irregular brown or purple spots on fruit with rough
texture
– Management
• Plant tolerant varieties; spray with copper containing
fungicides

41. Harvesting
• Handle fruit carefully during harvesting
• Fruit should be cut off
• Healthy fruit should be carried in canvas
picking bags
• Harvested fruit should be removed as soon as
possible
• place it in cold storage

45. Uses of Avocado
• Health benefits
– lower cholesterol levels
– seeds, leaves, and bark are used for dysentery
and diarrhea.
– promote hair growth
– relieve toothache.
– Use for skin care
• Use as food item
• Beverages

47. Value added products

49. Research Ideas
• Investigate the relationship between fresh avocado
consumption and risk factors for cardiovascular disease
emerging research suggests that fresh avocados may play a
positive role in many emerging areas including skin, eye, joint
and cellular health.

50. References
• http://www.fao.org
• http://ucanr.edu/sites/Farm_Management/fil
es/156255.pdf
• https://www.plantvillage.com/en/topics/avoc
ado/infos/diseases_and_pests_description_us
es_propagation

51. Thank you