Avocado FNAv1 is the code name I have chosen for a specific clone of grafted avocado with a pedigree resulting from 30 years of research. Its good points are
1. Good flavour, uniform cream texture and uniform clean colour of the flesh.
2. Handy pear shape and size.
3, Flowering and fruiting in 3 years and thereafter on average once a year.
4. Self-pollinating i,e. does not need a partner tree, hence suitable as a single tree in a small area as in the mini garden of a terrace house
5. Non seasonal
The fifth point is significant. Seasonal fruits like durian and rambutan produce a glut each time they fruit because they all fruit together. With FNAv1, the individual plants although all genetically identical, somehow become independent and unpredictable in their times of flowering and fruiting. A tree may have a break of 12 months between crops or sometimes one crop may follow another almost without a break. A plantation could be producing all year round with different trees producing at different times.
Propagation of the plants is slow and difficult. It takes about 9 months to produce a grafted plant. Only about 50% of seeds produce graftable stock plants and only about 50% of plants survive grafting. The genetic identity of the stock plants is fixed to avoid complications from unknown stock-scions interactions, hence I am limited by the number of seeds available. This year I may be able to produce 20 plants out of 100 seeds that I planted last year from a crop of fruits from a 30 year old tree. There will be a small crop of seeds in 5 months time from a 3 year old tree that is flowering now.
I propose to establish an email group of all those who obtain these plants from me so that we can track their behaviour in different places in Peninsular Malaysia and thereby build up the knowledge base necessary to support a local avocado industry. I will not patent the plant so all those who buy it will be free to repropagate the plants themselves.
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8 comments:
Dear Dr Francis
Where can I purchase the avocado plant? Those on sale in Sg Buloh , are they any good?
Cheah SK
If you grow avocados from seed you do not know what the result will be. If you are lucky the tree will fruit in 6 years. Some take 10 years or more. The taste and texture can be very disappointing. If you only have room for one tree and it takes 10 years to find out that it is a mistake, you would have wasted 10 years and have to start all over again.
Dear Dr Ng,
First I must thank you for what you've been contributing to the avocado industry in Malaysia!
My partner (current UM student) and I (fresh graduate) have been running a small start-up to solve the avocado issues in Malaysia so that people can eat avocados consistently and effortlessly. We wonder why we don't see local avocados in West Malaysia as much as in other SEA counties like Indonesia and Vietnam. The avocados we use are mainly Hass avocados from foreign countries and those are always in bad quality (even Australian ones)
You may find more info of what we're doing here: https://www.avocadian.com
Would you think Malaysians would appreciate what we're doing? Would you think we should start planting avocado trees too? Is it possible to get an avocado plant from you as mentioned in this article?
Please advice. Thank you very much! =)
Sincerely,
Low Meng Kuan
Dear Meng Kuan
I have seen your webpage and it looks good. Avocados are getting more popular each year because of their health properties so your venture has good potential.
I am disappointed by all the imported avocados sold in the local supermarkets. I find them poor in texture, colour of flesh, and taste. A local variety, said to be produced in Cameron Highlands is watery and tasteless.
FNAv1 can be grown as a small tree and the fruits are superior to the fruits now available on supermarket shelves. My present batch of grafted plants will not be ready until two months time and I will sell them for RM250 each. If interested please contact me by email: tropicalplantman@gmail.com.
Hi Dr Francis Ng
Over the years, I have now and then quite excitedly read your articles in a local paper and elsewhere on gardening. I am fascinated with planting stuff, and you just superbly feed my fascination.
But it's only today that I came across your mention (back in in Jan 2018) in your blog about the the avocado plant you have customised to meet your requirements.
Yes! yes! sir. I would very much like to have one of your FNAv1 avocado plants. I hope they are still available. Believe the price is RM250 each.
The imported avocadoes are mainly expensive. As for taste, can't say I am a connoisseur of avocadoes. Honesty, I sort of like all that I have eaten, and am shamelessly plebeian in that department.
Now, about seven years ago, I came across some giant-size avocadoes at a fruit stall in a coffee-shop in Bidor ..... nope, not the world-renowned Pun Chun restaurant, or the stalls near it, but further away in a corner, kind-of-makeshift coffee-shop as you are about to exit onto the highway to KL. I enjoyed the fruit and planted the seeds.
About the same time, my maid lugged (bless her indeed!) quite a number of avocadoes all the way from West Timor, Indonesia. Loved those too. And yes, I planted a few seeds.
As the story continues... A relative set up an organic farm in Kuala Kubu Baru. Weekend thing for him. Got organic vegetable, fish and eggs from him.
One thing led to another and I asked this gentleman farmer to plonk my avocado plants onto his KKB patch of organic paradise. Unfortunately, we didn't factor in the white ant menace and, well, my avocado plants now just reside in my memory. But life is a journey, and regrets feature not at all here. I enjoyed and am grateful for that bit of journey with the avocado plants which came to me as fruits from Bidor and Timor. Sorry for what the termites did to the plants, but those critters made my experience richer, more profound, at another level.
OK. This is an email to you, but I think I will also post it on your blog. Who knows? Some other avocado mad person might enjoy a read.
But don't forget, sir, to revert on an FNAv1 specimen for me ! Thank you.
Regards
Kim Ying
Dr Francis, Can advise where to get a FNAv1 avocado tree?
Hi Doc,
Appreciate and admire your work on avocado cultivation (and all the other horticultural work) you've done over the decades especially towards the selection and breeding and acclimatization etc of suitable cultivars.
When might you expect the next batch of the grafted FNAv1 clones would be available? Would it be possible to source a couple of these from you please? Happy to arrange to pick up at a time and place of your convenience. Please do advise thank you sir.
Additionally if and when we meet we would also greatly be obliged if you could kindly share some tips in the sourcing of suitable scions/budwood/topstock/cuttings from mature fruiting avocado trees...
Have also separately emailed you and look forward to your kind advice sir. Thank you!
Best,
CW
Thanks for sharing! You could order avocracy avocado from us in GoFruits Malaysia.
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