My neighbor still has a tree from the 1937-planted avocado farm that was here before the houses were built in the 1950s. His understanding is that it was an experimental descendent of Fuerte. The fruits are larger than other Fuerte, but otherwise indistinguishable. I can share a pit.
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Sounds cool! What level of cold temperatures can that tree take?
I can confidently say that the particular tree has survived historical freezes that seriously damaged surrounding citrus orchards. Either parent (if it really was an experimental Fuerte descendent) or clonal (if just a normal Fuerte) trees survived at least 3 well-documented instances down to the low 20s or even high teens. https://www.avocadosource.com/CAS_Yearbooks/CAS_22_1937/CAS_1937_PG_90-93.pdf
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That sounds really impressive. Those sound like seeds ideal to share with avocado lovers living in zones 9a or 8b.
Thinking - I could also snag some known old-stock Fuerte pits out of avocados from a nearby commercial orchard. They also have several other varieties, and Fuerte is a good pollinator for the most of the others (and the others are a good pollinator for the Fuerte), so the potential for crosses is high. (Avocado flowers are certifiably WEIRD in their pollen handling.) The only potential downfall of that plan is that the pits of late season Fuertes from their trees are frequently already sprouted in the fruit, so keeping them alive through transport is a little more complex.
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That is seriously cool. It sounds like you have great germplasm near you.
Do avocado pits normally have enough dormancy to dry them out and save them for years? Or, like most tropical fruits, do they need to be planted ASAP?
I’ve never tried to sprout a pit that had been out of the fruit more than a few days. I saved a pile last year to try extracting pigment from (the tannins produce colors ranging from peach to magenta), and they nearly all split within the month I was collecting, so that’s not promising.
That definitely sounds like they need to be harvested fresh from the fruit and planted right away. (Though I imagine they can easily survive a few days of staying moist in the fridge or in the mail, since most tropical seeds are okay with that much.)
The orchard does offer shipping of their avocados if someone wants to eat the fruit and then plant the seed directly.
I also have impossible landrace project ideas, but it might not be the same kind.
Dozens of individual projects reaching that 3-4 year maturity stage. A seed share program that goes from the international to the local, from the maximally diverse to the locally adapted. GTS seeds so plentiful that we are able to stock up local seed libraries. More and more crops for which we can offer multiple seed mixes. Enough seed reserves to provide hundreds of seeds to a single project if the opportunity arises. Regional GTS satellite organizations popping up all over. Basically hundreds of people who love gardening, love saving seeds, and have fallen in love with the idea of adaptation gardening.
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Nice! Do they have a website?
I like your big dreams. 