Paul & Maria moved to Tasmania a few years ago on a hunch that they would be able to grow avocados just as well here as they did back in their home state of Western Australia. After proving their convictions correct, they decided to enjoy retirement and sold the orchard to Brad, who hails from a farming family in Queensland and was excited at the prospect of getting back into agriculture again, after spending time in other work.
Unusually, avocados take two years to reach full maturity on the tree, so each tree has both light green fruit (with a low oil content) from the current year, and slightly darker green fruit that has been on the tree for 15 months or more that has a higher oil content and thus full flavour (not all avocado producers leave fruit on the tree long enough to develop this oil content), and will mature in the current season. Unlike other avocado growing regions in Australia, Tasmania’s rainfall occurs mainly in the colder part of the year, which means that Tasmanian avocados don’t need to sprayed with fungicide, and the red basalt soils that Paul carefully investigated before buying their North Motton property ensure that the shallow rooted avocado trees need little more than water to ensure a bumper supply of fruit!