Avocado flowering types differ: how do you pair pollination varieties?
The avocado's flowering method is unusual: the petals of the same small flower open and close twice. The first opening is the female phase, and after closing for a period it opens a second time, now switching to the male phase. Simply put, every flower goes open > close > open > close twice; the first opening is female, and the second opening becomes male. Therefore, in theory a single avocado tree cannot pollinate and set fruit, so based on the interval between petal opening and closing, avocados are divided into type A and type B. Planting both types together increases the chance of pollination and promotes fruit set.
Type A flower varieties: open on the first day in the morning (female), close at noon. Code name "Ping"
Open on the second day in the afternoon (male), close in the evening. Code name "Xi"
Type B flower varieties: open on the first day in the afternoon (female), close in the evening. Code name "Le"
Open on the second day in the morning (male), close at noon. Code name "An"
Ideal male-female pollination pairings: "Ping" + "An", "Xi" + "Le"
# Avocado flowers have two characteristics: protogyny (female flowers are produced first) and synchronized opening and closing (all the small flowers on the whole tree open and close together). In practice, it is impossible for the many small flowers of a single avocado tree to open and close precisely at the same time, and severe temperature and weather changes and other unknown factors may still cause differences in opening and closing times among the small flowers, resulting in brief overlaps of female and male flowers. Therefore, single-tree fruit set or sporadic fruit set is still quite common.
In addition to A+B pairings, avocados are also divided by harvest season into three categories: early-season, mid-season and late-season. Considering both flower type and harvest season gives six categories: early-season A, early-season B, mid-season A, mid-season B, late-season A and late-season B. Professional growers each have their own special pairing methods, but for casual growing there is no need to worry about so much: planting one of each kind will not go wrong, and genetically the more mixed the genes the better. No matter how others pair them, as long as they set fruit, that is fine.
