A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 avocado plants

I did a search on this and couldnt find anything on it. Hopefully someone here will know.

I have heard that if you start an avocado plant by the seed, you will have to get a branch from an already established fruit bearing tree and merge them together in order for your plant to bear fruit. Is this true? and, how long does it take to get fruit?

shari
yes it is true. an avocado tree from seed takes about 15 years to bear fruit.now sometimes you might get lucky as i did and get fruit in about 5 years.if you graft the tree with a limb (called a scion) from a tree that has already had fruit, you can usuallt have fruit the following year.within 2 years for sure.

ok, so now i am bummed! no offense Art, but 15 years? mama mia, I am 39 now... i guess I should should buy a tree....LOL

Shari,
sorry for the bad news.as i said ,sometimes you get lucky and have fruit in about 5 years. but it is very very unlikely.you could hire someone to graft it for you.but it would cost more than buying one from a nursery.the trees you buy at a nursery are already grafted,so you get fruit within 2 years.in your area i believe you will have to contend with frost.i can give you some pointers on how to handle that if you are still interested.

that sounds great Art, thank you!

shari
try this site i'm sure you will find what you are looking for. Good Luck.
GrowQuest.com

thank you Art