Tourists Will Be After

Those Avocado Pears

Since the avocado pear is a luxury item on jet-set menus, it follows that there will be an increasing demand for the fruit in the Islands of the South Pacific where more and more well heeled tourists are arriving every day.

The avocado, which can be grown iroughut the tropics, is divided into iree races: the Mexican, the Guate lalan and the West Indian.

The Mexican race is of very little ammercial importance, except for ybrids between it and other races, rees of the Guatemalan race tend ) bear large fruit which have thicker nd rougher skins than those of the lexican variety, while the West idian avocado bears fruit of varying ze, the skins of which tend to be a ttle thinner and smoother than those f the Guatemalan varieties.

The leading commercial avocado ariety is the Fuerte which is a ybrid between the Mexican and Guatemalan races. The Fuerte bears ither a large pyriform fruit usually 8 to 16 oz) and has a thin, ull green skin. The flesh has a □ttery texture and a rich nutty avour.

Precautions

The opportunities for expanding ic trade in avocado pears depend irgely upon producers harvesting x)d quality fruit, taking adequate ■ecautions to ensure that it is picked ; the correct stage of maturity, and ack e d and transported under atimum conditions. Producers in alifornia and Florida, for instance, irefully clip the fruit from the trees ith a small portion of stem, and iter washing it to remove dirt, etc., rade it to size before packing.

Most growers find it difficult to jtermine the correct stage of laturity for harvesting avocadoes, nee mature and immature fruit apear very similar externally. The alifornian industry considers that ic only reliable criterion is the oil Dntent of sample fruits—it should e at least 8 per cent.

To prevent damage Florida avoca oes are normally packed in trays aiding a single layer of fruit, or in igs. The latter package is usually sed for avocadoes weighing at least 3 ounces or measuring 31 inches in iameter, and may be made of either breboard or wood with inside imensions of 11 x 161 x 10 inches.

Avocado trays have inside dimen sions of 131 x 161 inches and may be 31, 31 or 41 inches in depth, depending upon the size of the fruit.

Trays are also used by the Cali fornian industry and hold approx imately 13 lb net weight of avoca does.

In packing avocadoes in trays or lugs, layers of slightly moistened wood wool are placed around the surfaces of the package as well as between the fruits so that each avocado is well protected in a nest of wood wool. The use of tissue wraps is not recommended since it has been found that wrapped fruits ripen too quickly—under American conditions at least.

The number of fruit per tray varies according to the size of the avoca does; from 12 to 24 fruits is quite usual.

Avocadoes are picked firm and soften on ripening. Temperature has a very marked effect upon the rate of softening and it has not been found practicable to delay this and to keep avocadoes in store for long periods.

Different varieties react very dif ferently on storage but investigations have shown the importance of pre venting the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the storage chamber. It has been found that if the concen tration of carbon dioxide is kept below 3 per cent, the fruit could be stored for longer periods and the development of brown discolouration in the skin is reduced.

For marketing avocadoes in the US it has been recommended that most varieties should be held at 45 deg. Fahr. during transportation by truck.

Though avocadoes are grown in the main for local use, there is an export market for them in non tropical countries. A guide to pack aging the fruit for exoort is provided by South Africa where regulations stipulate that:

• Avocado pears shall be packed in single layer clean new trays 18 in. long and 12 in. wide. • Each fruit shall be wrapped in paper, cellophane or other suitable material and surrounded by wood wool. • The trays shall have a thick layer of wood wool on the bottom and along the sides and ends as well as a sheet of paper and a thick layer of wood wool between the paper and lid. • The fruit shall be cut from the tree and from i in .to i in. of the stalk shall be left on the fruit. • All “selected” grade avocadoes shall be in sound condition, true to variety, uniform in size, fully developed, mature but not over-ripe, clean and free from injury, disease, insect infestation, and free from other blemishes detrimentally affect ing their appearance. • All “choice” grade avocadoes shall be in sound condition, true to variety, uniform in size, fully developed, mature but not over-ripe, clean and free from injury, disease, insect infestation, and reasonably free from other blemishes detrimen tally affecting their appearance. • The fruit shall be packed diagonally in the trav. No tray shall contain more than 16 fruits and the pack shall be firm.