As part of the activities offered during the 8th Jalisco Avocado Congress, FreshFruitPortal.com was invited to a field day at the Cerritos Group's Las Lomas Orchard in Ciudad Guzman, Jalisco during the second day of the event.

Attendees learned more about the avocado plantations in Jalisco and Cerritos' operations through a talk by the orchard's technical managers, followed by a guided tour.

Las Lomas Orchard spans 733 hectares (about 1,811 acres) of avocado production, with over 80% destined for the U.S. market. The orchard also has 571 trees per hectare (2.4 acres).

Ramiro Molina, the orchard's operations director, explained that the plantations are divided into three zones: the lowest, between 3,608 and 4,593 feet above sea level; the middle, from 4,921 to 6,233 feet; and the highest, from 6,561 to 7,217 feet.

With around 150 people directly operating the orchard, Molina explained that “the focus is on sustainability and producing the best possible food”.

Water use is a priority, with a drip irrigation system. Molina indicated that during the summer (May-April), each tree requires 31 gallons of water per day to produce avocados, which are mostly 38-40 caliber

Cerritos Production Manager Francisco Javier Esparza explained the particularities of the orchard's more than five years of operation, including its management of microorganisms and a non-conventional approach.

“The first year we managed to get 881 lbs. per hectare (2.4 acres), and this year we estimate to produce around 25 tons per hectare,” said Esparza. “We have a combination of Mendez and Hass.”

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Nutrition and irrigation

Gloria de los Santos, nutrition and irrigation manager at Cerritos, stressed the importance of providing the trees with the necessary nutrients at the right time.

“Through this aspect, we control the efficiency and quality of our fruit,” said de los Santos. “We have two canals with five injection canals each for our irrigation, which allows us to have better control and conductivity in our irrigation recipes.”

She indicated that irrigation prescriptions are updated every week, depending on what they are seeing in the field.

“Since we work with a lot of surface, the irrigation recipe is the best system to work with the irrigation managers and keep a detailed monitoring of what is going to be done day by day,” said de los Santos.

She added that once a season, bud, leaf, and soil fertility analyses are sent to the laboratory to determine the ranges to use for each ingredient.

Phytosanity

Depending on the different phenological stages of vegetative development, the company makes the criteria to make the applications, considering the schedules and the products to be applied.

The orchard is monitored on a weekly basis, alternating between varieties, from which 30 trees are sampled to compare the pests present in previous seasons. This way, they can make the necessary preventive applications.

The main pests in the region are thrips, red spider mites, crystalline spider mites, dust fly, leafhopper, white scale, and some sand louse.

In addition, this year the company built its own research laboratory to keep a more efficient monitoring of pests and diseases in its orchards.

As with pruning, the experts stressed that each orchard has different needs, so it is important to make personalized evaluations of the components that should be used in each plantation.

The event ended with a guided tour of the orchards where attendees were able to see large quantities of avocados approaching the harvest stage.

The 8th Jalisco Avocado Congress continues to be held in Ciudad Guzmán until August 30, and we invite all our readers to stay informed of the most important details of the event through FreshFruitPortal.com.

The Global Avocado Summit, organized by the Chilean Avocado Committee and the Yentzen Group, will be held on November 21 at the Casino Monticello event center in Chile.