How to Calculate If Your Avocado Trees Are Stuck in an Alternate Bearing Cycle

  • Apr 15, 2013

One of the most important avocado grove cultural management practices is walking your grove and taking notes on the health, growth cycles and management principles you’ve applied for your trees. Notes such as this can also help you determine whether or not your avocado groves are in an alternate bearing cycle.

First, review your crop stats. Are you seeing very divergent highs and lows in your avocado crop numbers? If so, chances are your grove is in an alternate bearing cycle.

You can also calculate your alternate bearing index (ABI) as follows:

Yield for on-crop – yield for off-crop = #####. Divide that  ##### by the sum of the yield for the on and off crops.

If your ABI = 1, then your alternate bearing is 100%. If your ABI = 0, then your alternate bearing is 0%. Typical California avocado grove ABIs are between .57 - .97. This indicates that off crop yield is 60% to 100% less than on crop yield.