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Merilyn says...
Hi Brendan and Jason,

My avocado seeds in Townsville have germinated in the last fortnight, including a seed from a perfectly round avocado about the size of a softball. I have never seen a perfectly round avocado before and bought it from the fruit section of Woolies (I think) just to see what it was like. It was a very green skin and the flesh was a lighter yellow and a tad more watery, if that is possible in an avocado and the fibres a bit more obvious. The taste was ok too though not strong; an interesting experience for an avocado. I have searched on Google and there is a variety of avocado 'Reed' which is round and of a similar description about size and colour.
http://www.avocado.org.au/foodservice/australianGrown/common_australian_grown_varieties.aspx
Generally I can germinate avocado, but after a while drought happens for one reason or another, but since I retired I am determined that this year I will grow my avocados successfully.
Does it really matter if avocados are not grafted? I know grafting is essential with some fruit trees eg citrus and roses, but I was under the impression, that it was possible to grow bearing trees from seed (someone told me their tree bore fruit well and was raised from seed.).

Jason says...
Hey Brendan I just had a read, there's actually always been pretty substantial Avocado plantations up there around Mildura. It's a bit hot up there for Avocados though and gets frosty in Winter. Imho it's a much better climate to grow them on the Southern coast or in New Zealand/California type climates than out in the desert but that's a traditional fruit growing area because of the water they can scam out of the river so they give anything a go.

Giving mangos a commercial go in Mildura though, that's some forward thinking. I've always thought they would do well there or at least well enough to get you an out of season crop worth big $$$$

Merilyn, that Avocado you have would have been one called "Reed" it's one of the better tasting varieties, maybe the best one. The one you had sounded like it wasn't fully ripe which often happens when they are bringing a variety to market a bit before it's got the oil content up, but a fully ripe Reed is very rich and flavourful (better than Hass). There's plenty of good seedling Avocados around and until recently all the Commercial orchards in Hawaii were seedlings but some of them will be duds and (depends a lot on what the parents were how many are good etc).

Anyway if you go and buy yourself a grafted tree (I'm not sure what varieties grow well that far North) but if you get a grafted one it'll give you something to get a few fruit off while you wait for the seedlings, it actually shouldn't be such a long wait if you can get good growth from them which I guess you can up there