A new avocado variety, grown on a smaller tree and easier to harvest than the Hass variety, will soon be available to growers in the world marketplace.
Known as Luna UCR, the new variety has been released by the University of California, Riverside (UCR) after a half-century of breeding and development.
Unlike the dominant green Hass variety, Luna UCR has green skin when immature and turns black when ripe. It is smooth and has a great taste.
Growers will benefit from a smaller tree size, allowing denser plantings for more efficient and safer harvesting and minimal pruning.
It also has a type of flower that makes it an efficient pollinizer for various avocado varieties, including the stalwart Hass, the world’s leading variety.
”Planting the Luna UCR intermingled with other varieties could help ensure good yields by increasing pollination rates,” UCR stated.
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While the Hass variety produces a very high-quality fruit, the producers of the new variety say that farmers struggle with harvesting, given the large trees, a challenge they believe will be solved by the new variety.
“Worker safety is an issue on large trees — you need to go up the tree with a ladder. The Luna tends to be a very tall but very slender, upright tree that can produce more fruit and be harvested without ladders. the fruit has very good storage quality, and it ripens very well,” says Arpaia, a UC Cooperative Extension horticulturist.
The new variety takes 3-5 years, from planting a seed to producing the first fruit. While the Luna may have certain horticultural advantages, experts say unless it tastes as good as the Hass or better, it’s not likely to have much of a future.
It will be marketed to growers worldwide through a partnership with Eurosemillas, SA, a company based in Spain that specializes in the international marketing of proprietary crop varieties.
