PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THE SEEDLING AVOCADO (PERSEA AMERICANA MILL.) POPULATION OF TENERIFE

M. Parrilla Glez, D. Rios Mesa, C. Méndez Hernández, J.Z. Hernández Glez, D. Fernández Galván, P.M. Hernández Delgado, V. Galán Saúco
Many tropical fruit species have become established in the Canary Islands as a result of human migrations between the Canaries and Latin America over the last two centuries. Seedling avocados, many of which are old, mature trees, can be found in private gardens, bordering commercial plantings, and in public parks on virtually all of the islands. The majority of those found in the island of Tenerife exhibit the typical characteristics of the West Indian race; unsurprising as the most intense migratory exchanges involved Cuba and Venezuela, where the West Indian avocado is prevalent. These local seedlings are of great interest today not only from an agronomical point of view but also from phytogenetical and phytopathological standpoints: as rootstocks, they are proving useful regarding salinity tolerance; compared to the popular commercial cultivars ‘Fuerte’ and ‘Hass’, their fruits have a lower oil content as well as a different harvesting season. During 2007 and 2008 most of the avocado seedlings of Tenerife have been inventoried, geo-referenced, characterised according to 40 codified metric characters selected from the avocado IPGRI descriptor and grouped following numerical taxonomic techniques. Of the 193 trees inventoried, 96 have been characterised, of which 42 are clearly West Indian types.
Parrilla Glez, M., Rios Mesa, D., Méndez Hernández, C., Hernández Glez, J.Z., Fernández Galván, D., Hernández Delgado, P.M. and Galán Saúco, V. (2012). PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THE SEEDLING AVOCADO (PERSEA AMERICANA MILL.) POPULATION OF TENERIFE. Acta Hortic. 928, 81-86
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2012.928.8
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2012.928.8
geo-referenciation, West Indian race, rootstocks, numerical taxonomy, hybrids
English

Acta Horticulturae