it is not normal .... trees should not gratuitously fall apart ... there are many reasons for such .. but if you want us to discuss it.. you will need to provide a lot more info than fruit size and breakage ...

where are you .. whats weather been for the last year.... and any other things that have happened within 20 feet of the tree ... excessive rains in CA??? ... drought.. etc ...

and a few pix sure would help ...

ken

Did the branch fall off or did it break? We have an avocado tree that is about 30 years old in our yard that had two branches break this past November most likely due to having too much fruit on them (the previous wet winter and spring probably contributed to it having more than it could handle) and they were loaded up with fruit.

Yes, because tree being asked about is a fruiting kind overloading of the branch with fruit is the first thing one might expect to have been a problem. Otherwise more information would be needed to be able to suggest a possible cause.

update: thank you all for your input. California has been in drought for that last few years but this past year we finally had rain again! we had an arborist come out and he said that the tree looked healthy and thinks that the tree just needed pruning. he suspects the second branch fell when the first branch fell and hit the second one, causing damage.

we have since had it pruned and it seems to be doing better!