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Why the Avocado Should Have Gone the Way of the Dodo

Its large pit and fleshy deliciousness are all a result of its status as an evolutionary anachronism.

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Frederick O. Popenoe, owner of the West India Gardens nursery in Altadena, Los Angeles
County, sent his son, Wilson Popenoe, and his employee Carl Schmidt, on collecting expeditions
in 1911 to find superior selections of avocado that might be productive in California. Carl
Schmidt sought out fruit that looked good in the market places, then tried to follow the trail back
to the tree to sample budwood for shipment to California. Schmidt was familiar with the
avocados sent from Atlixco and he did most of his collecting in this region. One of the budwood
samples taken from a tree in the backyard of Senor Le Blanc in Atlixco was labeled “No. 15” – a
producer of fruit of exceptional quality. These buds were grafted onto seedlings at the nursery in
Altadena. A devastating freeze in the winter of 1913 killed most of the avocado trees in the
nursery, however “No. 15” survived. A batch of 50 nursery trees of the hardy new No. 15 variety
were reluctantly accepted by grower John T. Whedon in lieu of varieties ordered earlier, but
frozen in the nursery. F. O. Popenoe, noting their hardiness for having survived the freeze
“named them ‘Fuerte’ after the Spanish word for strong” (Poole and Poole 1967).

“The Fuerte trees were planted on Whedon’s place near Yorba Linda (Orange Co.) on March
12, 1914, thereby establishing the first orchard of the cultivar that would come to be for many
years the industry’s principal, market-preferred variety—the variety, indeed, upon which the
California avocado industry was built, and that was introduced and grown successfully in
many other countries” (Shepherd 1991).

This small orchard was to prove profitable for Whedon. As described by Poole and Poole,
“When his orchard came into production he had standing orders from hotels in Los Angeles and
San Francisco who were willing to take all he could ship, paying as much as $12.00 per dozen.
Because of the Fuerte’s cold resistance and high quality fruit, the buds from his trees were in great
demand, and in some years, he realized as much as $6,000 from buds alone (Poole and Poole,
1967).