The avocado pulp can also be prepared into guacamole sauce, then frozen. Picking the crop is like a crap shoot at Las Vegas. But to be declared mature, the fruit must have 8 per cent oil. This is a state requirement in California, not Florida, however. The grower takes his risk, has a sample tested and then picks the fruit early.
Risks occur when the crop is left on the tree, waiting for higher prices.
It all makes for some exciting moments in the avocado orchard. As the trees grew, he thinned them. You have to understand that we started from scratch. There was just a hillside and undergrowth, no road, no water or electricity, nothing. We were atop the Fox Canyon aquifer, but to tap into it we had to drill a well.