The Avocado Decision: Commercial Growing in Marginal Climates

Find out before you plant.Avocado is going into ground at the edge of its climate - southern Iberia, Sicily, Crete, Morocco, Turkey, Cyprus, cool-zone California, New Zealand, southern Australia, Chile. This book is for the person deciding whether to plant on one specific site, and it is built to be worked through before the money is committed.It turns on two gates. Gate One asks whether winter minima stay above the cold-damage threshold of the scion you intend to plant. Gate Two asks whether bloom-month temperature will let the flowers set fruit - and Gate Two ends more projects, because a failed bloom cannot be recovered inside the season.Every number carries its provenance- Marked evidence. Every figure is tagged measured, reported or computed, so you know what you are trusting.- Disagreements printed, not averaged. Where two sources conflict, both appear and the conflict is named.- 112 declared gaps. Where nothing is published, the book records it and states what you must establish locally, on your own ground.What is insideNine parts and forty-three chapters: before you spend anything; the two gates; the site - water, soil and wind; the choices you cannot reverse, from rootstock and scion to planting density; putting trees in the ground; running the orchard; protecting the crop from root rot, pests, frost and wind; and harvest, market and money, built on a measured Andalusian cost study of thirty-three mature orchards.Then six regional case files on one fixed template - Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece, Morocco and Turkey and Cyprus, cool-zone California, and New Zealand with southern Australia and Chile - each ending with an itemized account of what could not be verified.Four appendices: a threshold quick-reference card, printable pre-purchase diligence checklists, a glossary, and 188 sources indexed chapter by chapter. Fifty figures throughout.Who is it forGrowers, investors, and advisers working at the climatic edge. It offers a method for finding out whether one specific site can carry the crop - not a way to make a marginal climate work.It also shows you how to decide not to plant and treats that as a complete and legitimate answer.