Minimum acceptable percent dry matter for Hass avocados grown in Columbia – wake up California we have the lowest standard in the world.

Porcentaje mínimo de materia seca para una cosecha adecuada del aguacate cv. ‘Hass’ en Colombia
Carvalho, C.P., Velásquez, M.A., van Rooyen, Z.
While the world avocado industry expands, a major concern for all is to set acceptable maturity standards for the harvest of Hass avocados.
Columbia is a newcomer that has been making efforts to establish these standards to assure that the quality of their exported avocados will meet an 11.2% oil content. After three years of research their results show an acceptable average of 24% dry matter. California on the other hand resisted over and over again to change its standard of 20.8% which is the lowest value for minimum percent dry matter in the world. Amazingly, if Columbia decides that 24% is the right value for their Hass avocados, they can legally ship avocados to California with average value of 20.8%. Isn’t it time to reexamine our arrogant stand that we have the best avocado in the world while we are allowed to harvest them long before they reach the minimum acceptable value of 23% dry matter demonstrated by several researchers. Additionally, we have release dates that originally were set annually using statistical models. It has been some time since these release dates were looked at or modified. The release dates are fixed as though all years and all growing areas are the same. How absurd?
Although the article from the WAC 8 is in Spanish, the tables and the graphs are easy to understand.

Click to access carvalhocp2015.pdf

Season of Maturity in California – What have we learned since 1946

Well, we got rid of the Fuerte, we have a relatively small plantings of later varieties that were developed by Dr. Bob Bergh  we are outright eliminating  the scion breeding program even though there are some very good variety being tested in the final stage of field evaluation.

The answer CAC has is that they know the Hass season is limited in duration but they always hope that magically the season will stretch no matter the poor quality in the early and late season fruit. Study the chart in the attachment, why did they care more then than CAC does now.

The best explanation I heard yesterday was that the handlers told CAC, YES THE HANDLERS!!! that they are not interested in selling new variety. VICIOUS CYCLE of talk and no action, the smoke screen of misinformation.