Do Avocado Trees Need Full Sun

Do Avocado Trees Need Full Sun – It’s tempting to think of avocados as summer loving because they come from the tropics, but we must remember that they come from high altitudes where the temperatures are very cool. (However, avocado varieties do well in California.) Plant explorer Wilson Popeno once estimated California’s avocado-growing climate to closely resemble that of Guatemala between 6,000 and 7,000 feet elevation. corresponds to. (“Searching Guatemala for a desirable new avocado”, in California Avocado Society Yearbook 1917.)

To be more specific, a pair of researchers from the University of California estimated that avocados grow best between 68 and 75 degrees. (See details in this paper.) Now, isn’t this about where you want to set your daytime thermostat?

Do Avocado Trees Need Full Sun

Fortunately, avocado trees can grow well in heat above 75 degrees, as long as they are kept well watered. But there is a point on the thermometer where avocado trees suffer no matter how much moisture is in the soil.

Managing Avocado Heat Damage

Apparently, above about 90 degrees avocado trees start to go bad. In particular, the holes (called stomata or stomata) in the leaves, which allow the tree to breathe, begin to close above 90. (Read more about it here and here.)

Does this mean we should come to the rescue of our avocado trees when temperatures break the 90-degree barrier? maybe maybe not. Depends on the tree and where it grows, as well as how much care you give it and how much you care about its appearance.

The most important thing is to provide enough water to help the avocado tree cope with heat above its comfort zone.

One explanation might be that if the temperature is above 100 for several days, a young tree that is generally healthy and well watered will get some bleaching on only a few leaves. This is not real damage. Because of that, my rule of thumb is that unless it’s above 105 degrees, good watering protection isn’t necessary to prevent real damage to a healthy avocado tree.

Do Avocado Trees Need A Lot Of Water?

But what if you don’t like bleached leaves? I do not. So I shaded most of my young avocado trees while I was gone. Here is another young Sharville tree that has been shaded from above with a 60 percent shade cloth:

The leaves are not damaged due to the evening protection from the shade cloth. The way I use shade cloth for my young trees when I’m at home (not on vacation) is usually with some tops worn when it’s 95 degrees or higher. I used clothespins to fasten it to the top of the cage.

Although sometimes, I leave the shade cloth on for the entire first summer of the baby tree, because I live in a fairly hot part of Southern California (Ramona) where the average daily high temperature in the summer is around 90. I have found that if the cage puts the shade cloth high enough above the treetops, 60 percent shade in the middle each day is sufficient and no more. But if the shade cloth is close to the tree or wraps around the edges at all, you don’t want more than 30 percent or you’re shading it more than necessary and slowing growth.

Shade can help protect young trees from the worst of Southern California’s heat. Remember July 2018? A nearby weather station for the National Weather Service registered 118 degrees, while my shaded front porch was still 113 degrees two days in a row. Some of the young avocado trees in the yard may have cooked without shade, but I doubled 60 percent shade cloth over them in the afternoon and they showed little stress. (Another avocado tree that was not planted nearby was so badly damaged that the entire branch died.)

How To Grow Avocado Seeds Into A Tree? 8 Simple Steps!

Other ways to shade young trees include setting up a beach umbrella for the day or planting four stakes around the tree and spreading burlap.

A grower in Riverside built this shade structure over his young avocados, and it helped the tree survive the high heat:

Another most relevant thing to protect the young avocado tree from the heat is to shade the branches and trunk.

When I was in Carpinteria, I saw a young Huss avocado tree, with bare branches exposed to the western sun but almost bronze.

Facts On Avocado Tree Roots

If the branch had gone through 100 degree days in my yard it would have turned black and broken. If you live in a climate like Carpentaria, you can get away with leaving such branches unprotected. But if you live in the interior, it would be wise to draw such branches on young trees, so that they do not get sunburned and may die in the long run. Young trees often don’t have the same canopy mass as older trees to protect themselves, and they need our sunscreens to help.

The branch of painting is also often referred to as “whitewashing” and several materials are used to achieve the effect. I used white latex paint mixed with one part water.

Some people also use a kaolin clay product called “Surround”. It can also be sprayed on the leaves to protect them from the sun.

But I’m not sure how effective Surround is at protecting avocado leaves in high heat. During the heat wave on September 5th and 6th, 2020, where the temperature in my yard reached 115 degrees, I did a perimeter spray on some trees. Specifically on my Nimlioh avocado tree, I sprayed just the tip of the branch with the new growth to see if it would do better than the unsprayed branch around it. I didn’t notice any difference. Are you?

Avocado Tree Diseases

Avocado roots prefer to grow on the surface of the soil if possible. If it’s hot out there, they can’t. Mulch keeps the soil level comfortably cool and friendly to avocado roots. The more roots a tree has, the more water it can absorb into its canopy to cool itself. I like to use wood chips around my avocado tree.

One day in the mid 90’s and I felt wood chips and then bare dirt near the wood chips. The exposed dirt was very hot, and it was so hot that I couldn’t hold my hand any longer. Such temperatures roast avocado roots. I have seen this happen where my chickens have scraped the mulch in one spot. Exposed roots turn brown and shrink rapidly.

Wood chips are not the only option for cooling the surface of the soil around the avocado tree. I often plant a vine or two in the ground near young avocado trees, and one reason is to reduce heat and increase humidity in that immediate environment.

Normally, in Southern California, when the temperature is above 100 degrees, the humidity is very low. This makes it more difficult for the avocado tree to manage the heat. Think how thirsty you get when the Santa Anas are round and the relative humidity is below 20 percent.

Plant Care 101: How To Care For Avocado Trees

During summers like this, I run a micro sprinkler under my trees for 15-30 minutes in the afternoon – sometimes every hour or two in the afternoon – to increase the humidity under the tree and in its canopy. I have seen trees whose leaves wilted and blossomed after such a pulse, indicating that it had given the tree a welcome relief.

I sometimes spray the leaves of the tree if it is 105 or higher. This serves to cool the tree better. If the leaves wither, the tree shows relief immediately: in a few minutes they swell and look normal again.

This evaporative cooling method has been used on avocados for over a hundred years, and was formally studied in the 1960s, and a report was published in the California Avocado Society Yearbook in 1963, titled “Cooling Avocado Trees with Splashes”. The report said, ‘Temperatures recorded a drop of up to 5 and 7 degrees.’

It is clear that wetting a tree cools it; The challenge is how to do it economically. Spraying trees with a hose takes time and effort, and you need to be with your trees during the heat of the day (what if you’re not working?).

The Complete Guide To Avocado Growing

In an old avocado orchard, I found this Rain Bird sprinkler on a tall pole that can be used to water the trees during the high heat of summer:

Using these old Rain Birds as inspiration, along with some advice from apple and pear growers in Washington, I experimented with different designs.

See more about this cooling method in my post, “Overhead Watering for Evaporative Cooling of Avocado Trees.”

Can our avocado plants really be kept in hot inland locations? Is it possible that avocados grow well here?

Why Our Avocado Plant Is Unlikely To Ever Yield Fruit

I will answer with the story of my visit to a small avocado farm in Redlands, San Bernardino County, this winter. Do you know Redlands? It’s hotter than Ramona, where I’m from. Redlands summers are too hot for avocados. Average August Day in Redlands Gets

Do lemon trees need full sun, do lilac trees need full sun, do olive trees need full sun, do cherry trees need full sun, do banana trees need full sun, do avocado trees need a pollinator, do fruit trees need full sun, do fig trees need full sun, do hydrangea trees need full sun, do avocado trees need cross pollination, do avocado trees need a lot of sun, do bonsai trees need sun