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California GArden Archives

Growing Grounds from California Garden

© SAN DIEGO FLORAL ASSOCIATION

These stories may not be published in any form or copied onto another media without written permission from San Diego Floral Association.

Reprinted From: May/June 2019 Volume 110 No. 3

Hass: The World’s Greatest Avocado

By John Blocker 

The word “California” in a recipe almost certainly means that avocados are a main ingredient. A California omelet contains cheddar cheese, tomatoes and avocados. A California burger is topped with bacon and avocado. A California burrito is filled with meat, French fries and guacamole.

In California, even a Thai salad is likely to have sliced avocado mixed with the chopped lettuce and other ingredients. Today’s sensation, poke, the traditional Hawaiian raw fish dish, when served here in California usually includes avocado. Spreading avocado on toast is a current national food fad, although most Californians have been spreading ripe avocado on our toast for as long as we can remember. At home we might add just a sprinkling of sea salt to the smear. California’s much-loved dip, guacamole, has become a coast-to-coast favorite.

Americans now consume an average of seven pounds of avocado per capita, per year.  This is a huge increase over the average consumption in 1989, when Americans ate just one pound of avocado per year on average. Information about the health benefits of avocados undoubtedly has added to the fruit’s popularity. Avocados are considered a superfood. They contain antioxidants, folic acid, Omega 3, and nutrients such as vitamin A, C, D, E, K and B6.

Although more than 400 varieties of avocados are available to growers, almost all the avocados planted around the world today are Hass. The Hass variety originated by chance in the late 1920s. At that time, the smooth, green-skinned Fuerte was gaining prominence among fruit ranchers and would soon gain the title of the world’s most popular avocado. Hass would not dethrone the Fuerte avocado until more than 40 years later.

Ninety percent of the avocados grown in the United States and 80 percent of the avocados grown in other parts of the world are now Hass. An estimated 15 million Hass avocado trees are being grown around the globe. Today, if you are eating an avocado, it is more than likely a Hass.

California’s First Hass Avocado Tree

The Hass was not a product of a breeding program or extensive field trials. The discovery of the variety that dominates today’s production was a result of missteps and luck.

All Hass avocados trees come from a single tree grown in La Habra Heights, a small city with many canyons, located on the southern edge of Los Angeles County at the Orange County border. In the mid-1920s, the city was one of the largest avocado-producing areas in California.

Around 1926, Rudolph Hass, a postman living in La Habra Heights, purchased a number of avocado seedlings from A. R. Rideout, a nurseryman in Whittier. The plants were thought to be germinated from seeds of Lyon avocado trees. The young plants were being grown in 2-inch x 2-inch x 8-inch sleeves. Hass planted the seedlings into the field around his house, creating a two-acre grove. After the seedlings took firm root, he grafted them with buds of Fuerte avocados, the variety most grove owners were choosing to produce at the time.

One seedling would not accept a bud even though Rudolph Hass tried many times. He finally gave up grafting efforts and left the young tree untended. It grew upright as it struggled to find space amid the other trees in the grove. For the first few years, the tree did not bear fruit. Hass came close to cutting the tree down.

When avocados finally appeared on this lone tree, the Hass children began eating the fruit—it soon became their favorite. They liked the rich, nutty flavor. According to Charles Hass, Rudolph’s son, he and his brother urged their father to taste the fruit saying, “Dad, it tastes great. You gotta try it.”  After tasting one of the avocados from this tree, Rudolph reportedly said, “Wow, this isn’t bad.”

The avocados on the tree were about the same size and shape as a Fuerte, one-half to three-quarters of a pound, and pear-shaped or ovoid. But the new avocado tree produced a fruit with a thick, black crinkled skin unlike the skin of the Fuerte, which is thin, green and smooth. Hass thought the dark skin made the avocado appear unappetizing, but he liked the flavor. He decided to promote the variety, hoping ranchers would consider growing it.

What he did not yet know is that the tree had other positive attributes. It grew vigorously. It produced an impressive amount of fruit after being planted for just three years. It had a longer bearing season than other available varieties, including Fuerte. And, significantly, the thick skin, although thought to be unattractive, protected the fruit from being bruised during shipping.

Hass patented the variety in 1935, naming it after himself. He and his partner Harold H. Brokaw began marketing the tree. Despite the patent protection, grove owners bought one tree and propagated more trees from the one purchased, as they always had done. This was in direct violation of the patent, but in these early days of plant patents, there was no enforcement agency that the partners could call upon to protect their interest.

Over many decades, the tree became a huge success. Today, Rudolph Hass is famous for giving us the world’s greatest avocado, but his gift did not bring him riches. As his son, Charles Hass, told a Los Angeles Times interviewer after Rudolph’s death in 1952, “For coming up with the greatest avocado in the world, my father’s royalties totaled $4,800 bucks over the life of the patent.”

The Hass Variety Triumphs

In 1957, only 15 percent of the avocados grown in California were Hass. It was not until 1972, almost 40 years after the variety’s introduction, that Hass production surpassed the Fuerte. In 1990, Hass avocados accounted for 83 percent of the avocados sold in California, while the Fuerte had dropped to 2 percent of the total. In the crop year 2010-2011, 94.5 percent of the avocados grown commercially in California were Hass.

By 2002, La Habra Heights had transformed into a semi-rural suburban neighborhood. Avocado groves had disappeared. The Hass mother tree planted in the mid-1920s by Rudolph Hass, however, was still there, now sitting in front of a ranch-style house. A bronze plaque had been placed at the tree’s base more than 10 years earlier, noting that this tree was the genetic source for all the Hass avocados in the world. The tree was declining quickly. It would soon collapse and die of avocado root rot almost 80 years after the seedling was first germinated.

Hank Brokaw, nephew of Harold Brokaw (Rudolph Hass’ partner), saved the wood from the dead tree and put it into storage.  The California Avocado Society now honors individuals who make special contributions to the avocado industry with plaques made with wood from this celebrated tree.

Few of us are likely to receive such a souvenir. But we can get a memento from the original Hass tree at any time by shopping at our local grocery store for an avocado. It is more than likely a Hass.


© SAN DIEGO FLORAL ASSOCIATION and © John Blocker.
These stories may not be published in any form or copied onto another media without written permission from San Diego Floral Association.


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