Jan Boyce. Hand's down.

Patty S.

Tell me more Patty!

Jan Boyce has been deemed the "best of the best" by Julie Frink, who is the curator of the Avocado Variety Collection at the South Coast Research Center in Irvine, the home of one of the largest avocado collections in the country. Julie has dubbed this avocado the "connoisseur's avocado" and for good reason. It is just superlative, smooth, rich, nutty, firm, delicious. Plus, the tree is nice and vigorous. My teeny, tiny Jan Boyce I planted last year has at least tripled in size, and it is VERY happy up on my slope. I'll snap a pic of it tomorrow. It was just a stick when I planted it, and I thought, "oh brother, it will never make it through the winter." I think I planted it in Nov. of 2010, actually, not the best time to plant an avocado. It didn't give a hoot, and it is just growing great guns. Here are some great articles for you to read about the Jan Boyce, plus, I'll give you a link to a source that was just shared by NorCalNiko on our forum in another recent thread.

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/24/home/hm-avocado24

http://ucavo.ucr.edu/AvocadoVarieties/VarietyList/JanBoyce.html

The only negative, if you can call it one, is they do not peel easily. but a spoon will work just fine!

Patty S.

Here is a link that might be useful: Epicenter Avocado Trees & Fruit: Jan Boyce

My only concern is that Jan Boyce is supposed to be a monster. Can I keep it to a reasonable size without losing all the fruit? What if I had room for jan Boyce and a second smaller one? What would you get to extend the season out?

I had a similar issue. I'm planting a Jan Boyce with a Sharwil, which is a much smaller variety. It's supposed to be excellent as well, though I've never tasted one... The Sharwil isn't listed on the Epicenter site, but they have them. Just request one.

Okay, I just emailed Epicenter about a Jan Boyce and a Sharwil. So exciting!

You can keep them smaller via pruning. The Dave Wilson guy said he has 4 different kinds and keeps them on the small side (10') and has year round avocados. You get less fruit per tree, but with year round avocados, you don't need a huge amount at any one time.

Reed is really good too.

That's exactly what I will be doing to my avos, hoovb. And my fruit trees, too :-) Even my citrus trees are being kept smaller and short. We have a "No Ladders" rules here for our fruit trees, lol! When we bought this house, we inherited a few fruit trees, one being a Panache fig which had gotten really tally. It was very pretty, but I couldn't even come close to picking all those lovely figs that were about 12 to 15 feet off the ground. So, I really limbed the tree last year. It's already starting to push out new leaves, and though we'll probably have fewer figs this year, at least I'll get to eat them all :-)

Patty S.

How did you guys get a hold of epicenter to order? I submitted the web form and no one responded to me.

They take a while to respond anyway, plus I am sure they are now being overwhelmed with Gardenwebbers. :)
Carla in Sac

Just ordered a Jan Boyce from Epicenter. It's amazing that there is not much at all online about this amazing avocado. Jan Boyce Avocado. I have a Lamb Haas, Sir Prize and one multi tree with Fuerte, Haas and one other I cannot recall. Would love to see pics of the Jan Boyce as a younger tree, the one in the field station video which shows a large probably 10 year old plus tree.

You can graft different varieties on one tree as well.