CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



169 



THE CULTIVATION AND FERTILIZATION OF THE 

 AVOCADO IN FLORIDA 

 By Wm. J. Krome, Homestead, Florida. 



While the avocado has been grown in Florida since the days of the 

 earliest settlements along the lower East Coast, the planting of or- 

 chards and the production of the fruit on a commercial basis 

 dates back little over a single decade, and it has been only in the past 

 few years that the industry has begun to assume proportions of real 

 importance in the horticulture of the state. It can therefore hardly be 

 said that any very definite systems of cultivation or fertilization have 

 been determined upon, but while the various cultural methods have 

 been almost as many as the number of actual plantings, and have all 

 been more or less experimental in nature, some of the general principles 

 are becoming fairly well understood and are gradually being adopted by 

 those interested in avocado growing. 



One of the first points upon which observers came to agree, was that 

 though the avocado tree demands a plentiful supply of water and flourishes 

 under irrigation, it will not thrive except upon well drained land and any 

 conditions that make towards a soggy or water logged soil are almost 

 prohibitive to the success in its growth. The trees, particularly when 

 young, are damaged to a greater extent than citrus by prolonged droughts 

 and at the same time there are many fine orange and grapefruit groves, 

 budded on sour orange stock, growing on land that is too low and wet for 

 the avocado. 



It has also been accepted as a fact that the avocado is a gross feeder 

 and to do its best requires a heavier supply of plant food than citrus trees 

 of the same age. This is evidenced on the Florida Keys where lime trees 

 thirty years old are to be found, in good condition of growth and produc- 

 ing heavy crops of fruit annually, vdthout any other source of food supply 

 than that obtainable from the deposits of humus filling the interstices of 

 the coral rock where the original hardwood jungle has been cleared away. 

 The avocado on this type of land makes a rapid growth when young and 

 will produce two or three good crops but after reaching an age of five to 

 six years the tree ceases to put on growth, begins to die back and in a 

 comparatively short time will die from starvation, unless the supply of 

 plant food available from the soil is augmented by the application of 

 fertilizers. The same fact has been demonstrated repeatedly in the avo- 

 cado groves on the main land and the writer has had frequent opportunity 

 to observe that where fertilizer has been applied sparingly not only 

 have the trees shown the effects of the insufficient food supply, but any 

 fruit which may be borne on them will invariably be small in size, with 

 thin meat and poor color. The flavor of such fruit, however, seems fully 

 equal to that produced upon trees in better condition. 



The nature of the plant food required by the avocado has not been 

 very satisfactorily determined, but it has become evident that a scheme 

 of fertilization must be worked out differing considerably from that which 



