Grafted avocado plant

It has been difficult to get one grafted avocado plant in Singapore. If you are lucky, you may find one grafted avocado selling at around $80 in one of the nurseries. I have checked World Farm and they are selling avocado trees grown from seeds. It is around $100 and at least 5ft tall. Well, if you follow my blog posts, you will know that I have grown avocado from seeds in end 2014. The trees that I have now are about 6ft tall (coming to 3 years old).

Most articles said that it will take 7 to 13 years for the avocado trees that are grown from seeds to bear fruits. They may not even fruit even after 13 years. Even if the tree bears flowers, it will not be able to get pollinated without the different types of flowers (Type A and Type B).

However, I have come across lone tree bearing fruits in Singapore. From the FB group posts, there is someone who has a fruiting avocado tree outside his house. The variety is unknown but it was bearing fruits even without other type nearby. He was trying to do air-layering to propagate the avocado tree. However, he was not successful. I have not done air-layering to my avocado but I have successfully rooted a cutting. I think rooting via cutting maybe a better option if air-layering failed. There is another matured avocado tree in Singapore. I will not disclose this location openingly but if you are interested, drop me a comment or message. It is at least 2 stories high and it is in a compound. I saw a couple of fruits around the canopy. Well, I was hoping that if they ever prune it, I can get a scion or two from them for me to graft on my seedlings. However, I think it is NOID type.

Avocado Tree in Singapore

The lowest branch I think is above one storey high. It is a big tree and if you zoom in the picture, you can see a couple of avocado fruits.

Grafted avocado trees are highly sought after in Singapore and especially if the variety is known. I happened to chance upon a seller in JB who has grafted Miki (fr Indonesia), Si Pendil and Kendil. But it was quite expensive and you got to bare-root them to bring them across the customs. There are also sellers that can help to courier the trees to Singapore. Since the seller is in JB area which is very near to Singapore, I contacted the seller and purchased a grafted Miki.

The seller has many grafted avocado tree and I chose the best grafted Miki. This Miki has many side buds which will develop into branches. The leaves are green, big and healthy. The seller had just repotted and fertilised it. The seller also advised on how to take care of the young tree. I will leave the tree in its black plastic bag until it has acclamatised to its new location. I bought this Miki avocado tree on 9 July 2017. Hopefully, in a couple of years from now, it will be able to bear flowers and also fruits. The seller told me that this Miki avocado is Type B flowers. I hope it will not need Type A nearby for pollination. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Grafted Miki

The master grafter tied a plastic to state the variety. The grafted area is very clean cut and fused completely. I had placed a pole beside it to stack and strengthen it. 

10 July 2017 - buds appearing

You can see that there are many side buds on the tip. I guessed the seller had pinched away the terminal bud to promote lateral branching. I chose this because I can tell from it that many side branches will propagate soon.

After 2 weeks in its new location, the Miki has grown very well and you can see the branching taking place. I will wait until the branches have at least 8 to 10 leaves and I will pinch away the terminal buds to promote more branchings.

Branching in progress

This Miki is not under direct sunlight as I don't want to cause sun-burn leaves. The seller mentioned that it is better to place the young avocado under a big tree so that it can get shaded sunlight. When I have more branchings, I will be experimenting on grafting Miki onto my young seedlings. Stand tuned for the grafting of avocado.

Avocado leaf browning, what is wrong?

I have placed my avocado seedlings on my window sill in my previous house. They were growing quite well and I didn't notice any abnormalities. However, I had to move house and I took them down from the window sill and notice that there are leaves turning brown. I'm not sure whether it is caused by salt accumulation or too much water.

As the new house has a big balcony which has at least 7 hours of direct sunlight, I'm afraid that it will burn the leaves. I bought new pots (bigger) and a couple of kilograms of garden soil. I just removed the seedling from the old pot together with the soil and placed it into the new bigger pot. I added the new garden soil around the perimeter to top-up the soil to the empty area.

I chose garden soil as I thought that it will be better than the commercialised potting soil. I will monitor closely and changed the soil if the plants are in stress.

I have three seedlings that have grown quite a bit and I placed one seedling in full direct sunlight and the remaining two in partial sunlight. Below are two photos that showed the leaves turning brown partially and not at the tip of the leaf. I was thinking of sun-burning of the leaves due to the intense sunlight but I'm not sure. Anyone has experience in this kind of problem? Please share and advise.

Avocado has many health benefits and Marry Spencer has listed 13 of them. Check it out at her post.


Leaf turning brown - what is the cause?



Leaf turning brown - what is the cause?

Growing avocado in Singapore

Time to check in with growing avocado in Singapore. I have three avocado seedlings growing in the pots with soil. They are on my windowsill that faces the western sun. The seedlings are growing well with new leaves appearing. One of the seedlings has a lot of leaves that make the top a bit heavy for the stem. I want the seedlings to have more branches instead of growing upwards. So, I need to trim or prune it. The leaves at the very bottom are quite hard to touch. They are not soft liked the new leaves that form on the canopy. I do not want the seedlings to grow tall as I know that avocado can grow into a tree if it is left unpruned.

As you can see from the photo below, the seedling has many leaves and there is only one branch. I think by trimming the top leaves, it will force the seedling to grow new branches. I also trimmed the branch to promote growth of other branches. Let's hope this works.

Avocado seedling

The pit of the avocado does not have the same phenomena as the one in water. The pit is still the same size and colour. It does not turn brown and rot as in the case of the avocado growing in water.

Pit of avocado

Another strange that I observed is that some leaves curled up as shown in the photo below. Is it due to the sunlight or normal for the leaves to curl at the stalk area? I'm not sure but the leaves tend to curl inwards and not spread out as in the normal plant.

Leaf curled

Yes, not just one leaf, there are quite a number of the leaves curling up. Those are smaller in size that the ones at the canopy. That is why I'm suspecting that they are affected by the sunlight.

Leaves curling

 

Growing avocado in water - 23 October 2015

The avocados are growing well in the water. Two of them have their pits turning black and then dried up. The toothpicks are still stuck in the dried pits. The dried pits did not seem to affect the growth of the plants.

I didn't know the reason for the pits to turn mouldy and eventually dried up. Probably, they were infected by some diseases. However, one of the plants which is nearby did not exhibit the same symptom. But this might be due to the fact that it is from another species and this species might be more resistant to the disease.

Another thing is that one of the pit has only half of it turning mouldy. The other half is still ok. This is strange.

The good thing about growing avocado in water is that you don't have to worry that the roots are not getting any water. You need to change the water regularly to replenish any nutrients that are needed for the avocado to grow. I'm thinking of putting a tube into the water and pump in air to aerate the water. So far, I saw only one leaf had its tip turning brown. Yes, even in water, you can see that. But I think if the water is changed regularly, the leaves should remain green.

I did a bit of trimming to the new leaves. I will update again.



Dried pit

Dried pit - moulding

Half of pit has dried up



Good pit

 Updates:

Yesterday, 21 Jan 2016, I have finally planted all the three avocado in water into soil media. I bought some garden soils from a nearby store and planted them. I noticed that the water was getting dirtier each week even though I have changed them regularly. The roots have become darker and less new roots appearing. I have moved house and have placed the avocado in water outside at the balcony. In order to avoid mosquitoes breeding, I have decided to remove the water and plant them into soil. I hope that the avocado will continue to grow.

Growing avocado in water - Mid September 2015

I have started growing avocado pit in water a few months back. They had sprouted and grown quite well for a few months and lately something happened.

The pit started to turn colour and I guessed they are rotting and drying up. It has not affected the growth of the seedlings and I'm not sure whether the pits are needed for further growth. The seedlings that are grown in soil after the initial germination in water had the pits still intact. Only one seedling in the soil has half of the pit turning colour. I tried to search in the internet for information on the pit turning colour and rotting but did not get any meaningful answers.

I will try to document in the blog on the colour change and possible rotting of the pits.

The pits were still in their usual colour even when the seedlings had grown to about one feet. I'm not sure whether it is due to the air-conditioning that the plants have been subjected to since the haze has come to Singapore. The seedlings were kept inside the room with the air-conditioning turned on for a few weeks already. I hope this is not the reason.

Avocado growing in water

Avocado growing in water

Avocado pit rotting

Pit rotting and drying up

I tried to move one of the small seedling to the living room where it was not subjected to air-conditioning at night. Only one half of the pit has turned colour and dried up. The other half is still in it's usual colour.

Avocado growing in water

There are new roots appearing even when one half of the pit has dried up. I think it is going to survive. I'm thinking of transferring the seedling to a pot with soil soon. But I'm still thinking whether I can still keep it in water.

Avocado moved to living room to avoid air-con

The below pit has the tallest seedling but the pit has turned colour and possible rotting. There is no abnormality in the root system and I hope that even without the pit, the seedling can continue to grow. I'm also not thinking of transferring it to a pot with soil soon. I will monitor this for a couple of months. So, now it is mid September 2015. I will update the status in mid October. Stay tuned!

Avocado pit rotting

The root system still looks ok. There are more branching on the roots and I have changed the water regularly every week. Currently, I have moved the seedling to a room without air-conditioning at night to see whether there is any effect on the seedling.

I will need to prune the seedling too. I hope the pruning will not affect its health. The rotting of the pit may have been stressful to the seedling and the pruning may add further stress.

Avocado root system in water

Pruned the avocado seedlings growing in water

I saw in one blog that when the avocado seedling had grown to about 6 to 7 inches, you would need to cut it the stem to 3 inches. This would allow the roots to grow well and develop strong and thicker stem. Well, I'm going to try this. I have pruned the seedlings which I have grown in water. One seedling was pruned with about 3 leaves left. Another seedling had its stem trimmed down with no leave on the stem. I'm going to see whether it will grow better or not.

Avocado seedling #1 (growing in water)

Avocado seedling #1 with 3 leaves left

Avocado seedling #2

Avocado seedling #2 - no leaves left

Avocado leaf tips turning brown

Recently, I noticed that my 2nd and 3rd avocado plants have leaf tips turning brown. It started from the tip of the leaves and slowly moved towards the stalk. Small patches on the leaves also turned brown. It occurred on all the old leaves as new leaves start to emerge from the pruned area.

Leaf tip turning brown

Leaf turning brown

It could be due to salt accumulation and under watering. I water the plants every three days and maybe it needs another watering in between. See SG My Life Is Good blog on the avocado seedlings.

I did a research on the internet and found that it could be due to the two reasons that I have mentioned above. One way to remedy this is to flush the salt away from the soil by pouring water over the soil continuously until water comes out from the bottom of the pot. I poured about 1.5litres of overnight water over the soil and ensured that the water drained completely from the pot. I don't think that it is due to the sunlight because the plants are placed near the window but there is no direct sunlight. There are no strong winds except when I switch on the ceiling fan to the strongest and it can be quite strong. However, I don't think this is the reason but maybe due to the winds generated from the ceiling fan, the water in the pot dries up quickly. The browning of the leaf tip may be due to insufficient watering. I plan to water more frequently, so I'm going to water the plants every two days instead of three days. I may plan to place the plants under direct sunlight to see whether this will give better results but I doubt so. Since 2nd and 3rd avocado plants have leaf tip turning brown problem, I will take the 2nd plant and place it under direct sunlight in the weekend to see whether the browning slows down or stops completely.

New bud growing from base of avocado leaf

New buds are growing out from the bases of the avocado leaves. It has been one month since I pruned the avocado seedlings. The cut area has healed nicely and the seedlings are doing well. I rotate the pots occasionally to let the leaves expose to the indirect sunlight. See my other post on the leaves bent towards the sunlight.

The third seedling is growing faster than the second seedling. I can see the leaflets forming distinctly in the third seedling. The leaves are not drooping and straighten up. I will need to do more research on how to prune the new buds. Maybe I will prune it when there are 3 leaves and snip away the tip when the time is right. Stay tuned to see the progress of growing avocado plant indoor.

New bud from 3rd seedling

New bud from 2nd seedling

 

Can my first avocado seedling survive?

The top leaves have turned brown and dropped off from the seedling. I think this first avocado seedling may not survive. I have missed the time to plant it into the soil and this have caused damages to the roots of the avocado plant. The seedling has not grown much since the last time I planted it. My wife told me to keep this plant for a while to see whether it can survive. I don't know what I can do now to help it grow except to keep it indoors together with my other two seedlings.

First avocado seedling - leaves dried up

I have removed the dried brown leaves. Now the seedling is quite bare except the tiny leaves along the stem.

 

First avocado seedling - will it survive?

Check back again in a few weeks to see whether first avocado seedling survive or not? I certainly hope it does...

Avocado leaf bends towards direction of sunlight

I was sitting on my sofa when I realized that there were no leaves on one side of my avocado plants. I was quite puzzled and upon investigation, I realized that the leaf had bent towards the windows. The leaf wanted to catch the sunlight and literally bent its stalk. Amazing it is and now I have rotated the pot to allow the leaf to bend back to normal. I think I'm going to rotate the pot every few days so that the growth of leaves will be even. I also noticed that the leaves away from the light source are small than the ones facing the light. Do not leave the plants in direct sunlight because this will kill the plants. Place them under indirect sunlight.

Third Avocado Seedling planted

The leaves were greenish brown and relatively small. The roots were quite developed and the stem was  at least 10 inches tall. I realized that it was time to plant this seedling. I planted this third seedling and the second seedling on 1 January 2015. The leaves curled a little bit after I placed the third seedling under direct sunlight for less than an hour. I think that the seedling is not strong enough to place under direct sunlight. It has to be under some shades or indirect sunlight. The second seedling is placed beside the window and it was doing fine. I put the third seedling beside the window and the leaves started to become flat and turn towards green colour. I watered the seedlings every weekend to prevent the roots from rotting.

Third avocado seedling

The stem is a bit crooked and I will probably need to rotate the pot to let the stem straighten up. I will let the seedlings set in their new environment before I prune them. It is crucial to know when you want to transfer them to pots because the first seedling had missed the time and currently it is not doing well. I will do an update on the first seedling soon. Stay tuned!

The three seedlings have different colours to the pits. The first seedling has green pit now, the second seedling has brown pit and the third seedling has beige pit.

Green pit - First seedling

Brown pit - Second seedling

Beige pit - Third seedling

I wonder whether they are from different species or the pit's colour changed over time. Maybe it will be interesting to take note of the colour of the pit a month later to see whether there is any change. The first seedling is a bit malnutrition and probably I have left it out on the balcony and the chilly winds in the night had injured the seedling. I have moved it indoors and will monitor its progress.

Second avocado seedling planted

Finally, I planted the second avocado seedling. It was planted on 01 January 2015. I had planted a third avocado seedling on the same day. I used potting mix bought from the local supermarket store and a 2kg pack can plant two seedlings.

Potting mix that I used

The second avocado seedling has few but big leaves whereas the third avocado seedling has many small leaves. The colour of the leaves for both plants are different too. The second seedling has green leaves whereas the third seedling has greenish-brown leaves. I will post the photos of the third seedling over the weekend.

Second avocado seedling

The second seedling is doing well and the leaves have not changed colour. This is a good thing I hope and I have not watered it since 1 Jan. I intend to water it once weekly and monitor its progress.

Roots of seedling

Roots of seedling

Crown above the soil

Planted in pot - need to remove the toothpicks

After planting into the pot, you need to remove the toothpicks carefully. I rotated the toothpick a bit to turn it and then pulled it out gently. At this stage, you try not to be overwhelmed and excited because you might damage the plant. I watered the soil thoroughly until I could see water coming out from the base. I will leave the plants indoors and see their progress.

How to grow avocado from seed - root turning brown

I have this avocado seed which had split open and roots have developed. However, the main root has turned brown recently. It is not the white root with crystals that I have seen for all my avocado seedlings. This one is different. The root has turned brown and the bottom area is dark brown or black. This is a bit strange as if it is spoilt or dying, the colour of the water will turn brown also. The water is still clear and clean. I notice that one little tiny root has emerged from the side. I hope the seed can survive. I'm not sure how to revive it if it is failing. I will try to change the water regularly to see whether this will help its growth. I have placed it near to the window sill so that the roots can get some sunlight to grow well. Anyone out there had experienced this before and would like to share? I will post updates on this.

Avocado seedling main root turned brown

How to grow avocado from seed

I started to grow avocado from seed 3 months back. I saw someone tried to grow avocado from seed on YouTube and wanted to try it myself. Some blogs said that it will not bear fruits if you grow it from seed. Some said that it can only bear fruits after 5 years or 7 years. I wanted to try growing it from seed. I went to the supermarket and bought 3 avocados for $3.45. They were from New Zealand, Avanza brand. I removed the skin on the seed and put 3 toothpicks around the seed. It is better to remove the seed because I had tried not to remove the skin and the seed did not grow well. The skin will cause the water to change colour and turn mouldy. But you need to be careful and gentle when removing the skin because the seed will have damages if you are not careful.

Growing avocado from seed

I put the avocado on a recycled bottle and poured in some water just to cover the bottom half of the see. It is better to leave this container in a well lit area. After a few weeks, you will notice that the seed will split open and a root will emerge from the split area in the bottom. You can change water after a few days. The root will continue to develop and you can see tiny little "crystal" or nodes on the root. 

Roots developed

Let the roots develop for a few weeks and then a new shoot will emerge from the top and leaves will turn to develop. The new shoot will turn towards the direction of the sunlight. You will see that the shoot/stem will bend towards the sunlight. I will always need to rotate the container so that the shoot/stem will bend and become straight again. I want to make sure the the stem grows in a straight upwards direction. 

New shoot will emerge.

After a couple of weeks, the shoot will develop into a tall stem with many leaves. At this time, I will transfer the seedling into a pot with potting soil. I will update the status again. Bookmark my blog.

Second Avocado seedling

I have another avocado seedling that has grown to about 15 inches. It is taller than the first avocado plant which I had planted a couple of weeks ago. This second avocado seedling is quite different from the first one. It is taller, the stem is thicker and the colour of the stem is darker. It looks much healthier than the first one. The leaves are greener. The roots are much developed.

Second avocado seedling @ 14 Dec 2014

I notice that it has a second shoot developing at the crown area. I have seen in the internet that some avocado developed two or more shoots (stems). I will wait a couple of weeks to see the second shoot.

Second shoot developing at the crown area

You can notice in the above photo that the stem is darker and thicker. The plant is definitely much healthier than the first avocado plant. Now, I'm thinking of when I should transfer it to a pot with soil. There are forums that said to wait till the plant is 7 to 8 inches tall and having leaves. This plant is already 15 inches tall and having 3 medium leaves and one small leaf. I suppose that it may be the right moment to plant it. The first avocado plant was only transferred to a potted medium when I noticed the leaves turning brown. I hope that this second plant will not suffer the same fate.

Second avocado seedling @ 15 inches tall

Any expert out there to advise on whether this is the right time to plant it? Thanks.