Hi Suzi, I'm almost 100% certain its grown from a seed. What do you mean inferior or superior? We used to have an avocado tree in the back, but its not there anymore (when it was there it produced a lot). There are tons of avocado growers in the area, and I am sure outside of the professional growers, plenty of trees in the zone. I would say all of this within a 10-20 mile radius.

Your best bet would be to graft it.

"What do you mean inferior or superior? " Avocados don't grow true to seed. Your seed-grown avocado will produce some mystery avocado that might be good and it might be terrible. Either way it will take way longer to produce ANY fruit than if you were to graft a recognized variety onto the roots.

Suzi and cw is correct. Ungrafted fruit trees (retail sold trees are grafted) are almost always inferior (fruit quality) to the mother tree. However, this is exactly how new varieties are discovered/produced. You might get lucky...but fruit is slow to come on (many years) ungrafted trees. I can tell you by growth pattern....that is not a Hass. Your call.

Its interesting that ungrafted trees would yield lower fruit quality, I've never heard that in any fruit. When you say that, are you referring to taste, size, or what exactly? Also, why would avocado provide inferior fruits from a seed vs. a grafted tree?

It's not that they *will* produce lower fruit quality, it's that you have no idea what fruit quality they may possibly produce - could be spectacular, could be horrible, it's a total mystery until they produce a fruit. However, if you graft a Brogdon avocado branch on your rootstock, you will get Brogdon avocados with it's consistently good Brogdon avocado quality. It's the same with any fruit that is not true to seed. Apples for instance. If you get a seed out of your Honeycrisp, plant it, it is HIGHLY unlikely that you will get an apple from that new tree that's anything like a Honeycrisp. It might be good, it might be bad, you will have no idea until you get a fruit from your new mystery-tree.

The reason people Patent certain varieties of fruit trees is because they have produced a fruit that's better than 99% of the other fruit out there, and they believe it's so good they can make money by selling it (both the fruit and the scion). So, because of this, the patented varieties of fruit are almost always tastier/better textured/longer lasting than the random variety that your avocado pit, or your apple seed will produce. You might get lucky and grow an apple tree from your seed that tastes better than a Fuji, but the odds are against you because the Fuji apple was chosen as the best of tens of thousands of other apples.

Thats interesting. I've heard of fruits regressing genetically, but I've never heard of them not producing to exactly the same fruit that you got the seed from.

It's similar in concept to animals. You might have a child that looks/acts somewhat like you, but until you give birth to (and ripen) that fruit, you'll have no idea, and he/she might look 90% like you or it might conceivably (ha) look 0% like you.

Stark Bros has an ok explanation on their web page: http://www.starkbros.com/growing-guide/article/science-of-grafting/

And UNM has one as well: http://aces.nmsu.edu/ces/yard/2000/070800.html

This is exactly why ALL commercially sold fruit trees are always grafted.