Ninety-five percent of the avocados consumed today are of the Hass variety.
When Rudolph Hass was about to dig up the soil to remove the small avocado tree he had planted in his orchard because it was of no use to him, he was persuaded not to do so.
It was the late 1920s. He had arrived in Pasadena, outside Los Angeles, in September 1923 with his wife Elizabeth and their 18-month-old daughter Betty. Some of the family, who had already settled in the area, had encouraged them to follow in his footsteps.
They travelled 3,300 kilometres from their native Milwaukee, in the northern United States, in a bumpy ride in an old Ford T that Rudolph had bought from a co-worker in 1920 for US$75 and which arrived in the southwest of the country without a rear wing and with a flat tyre
Once in California, Rudie, as he was called, first got a job at a fruit and vegetable stand, then became a salesman for a manufacturer of hosiery, underwear and accessories. He sold washing machines and hoovers, until he was hired as a mail carrier by the Pasadena post office.
That was, according to his wife’s notes, in 1926. Although that text was written decades later and other information in it does not match exactly with documentation that proves it.
One day, while delivering mail, Rudie saw an ad in a magazine advertising land with avocado trees – called palta in part of South America – from which, according to Elizabeth’s account, banknotes were hanging.
Hass avocado historian GinaRose Kimball says that the advertisement probably had a bag with dollar signs and an avocado fruit next to it, rather than a money tree.
California, which while Mexican territory had no avocado plantations, had tentatively begun to grow avocados when in the 1870s three seedlings brought from Mexico were planted in Santa Barbara; half a century later the avocado was being promoted as a promising business in the state.
Rudie got excited and when he was able to sell a property they owned near Milwaukee, he took the money, borrowed some from a sister and went to the office of the local businessman in Los Angeles he had seen in the ad.
In California the Hass avocado has one crop a year, but in Mexico it has four, which provides a year-round supply.
This was Edwin Hart, who had first encountered the avocado in Mexico in the late 19th century and in 1919 bought the La Habra ranch, some 1,500 hectares outside Los Angeles and not far from Pasadena, to grow the fruit and then sell plots.
Rudie bought a 1.93-acre plot of land – 7,800 square metres – that already had some avocado trees in the rural area that had by then been renamed La Habra Heights. He agreed to pay US$3,800 in quarterly instalments. The initial deposit was US$760.
“When he bought, he did so with the desire to grow a different variety, possibly Lyon,” Kimball says. That’s a Guatemalan-type variety – large and hard-shelled – that a man named Lyon had planted in Hollywood in the early 1900s and which in its early years seemed to be the most promising. It was common in California at the time for avocado plantation owners to give their surname to each new variety of avocado.
A Pasadena street in 1925SOURCE OF IMAGE,GETTY IMAGES
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Pasadena was in full swing in the mid-1920s.
By the time Rudolph entered the industry, the most common variety was the Fuerte, so named because it survived a fierce frost in California in 1913. This avocado, being of the Mexican type, is characterised by a soft, smooth skin that is easy to peel.
Horticulturist Albert Rideout had an avocado nursery near La Habra Heights at the time. Whatever avocado seeds he could find, wherever he could find them, he planted them in search of new varieties. He agreed to pay US$3,800 in quarterly instalments. The initial deposit was US$760.
Rudie went to that nursery and bought a bag of seeds of what they believed to be Guatemalan avocado, which, unlike the Mexican avocado, has a hard shell.
Failed attempts
Back in his orchard, he took crates of apples that he filled with sawdust and planted the seeds inside. He watered and watered them until they sprouted and, when the stems reached the thickness of a pencil, just over half a centimetre, he transplanted them into the ground and protected them with cardboard.
Then, with the help of a specialist named Caulkins, he used these new plants to graft shoots taken from Fuerte and Lyon avocado trees.
This technique is used to reproduce plants but does not involve creating a hybrid of the new with the old; genetic mixtures are formed through pollination. Instead, it seeks to grow new trees of the budding variety. In the case of Rudolph Hass, he wanted new Fuerte and Lyon trees.
But one of the new plants refused to take the grafts. They tried once, it wouldn’t take. A second time, nothing. For each new attempt they had to wait until the right time of year. By the third failure, Rudie had had enough and wanted to remove the new tree from his orchard.
Caulkins suggested he not kill it, just leave it there.
Nasty-looking avocados
Page from a family memoir written by Elizabeth Hass.IMAGE SOURCE,HASS FAMILY
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Elizabeth Hass wrote the family memoir in a notebook and included the story of the creation of the Hass avocado.
In 1931 the plant produced its first six avocados. By the following year there were 125.
They were dark on the outside, a mixture of black and purple, with rough skin, and made an unpleasant, rotten impression. They had nothing to do with the bright green skin of the avocados they were used to eating in California.
But her children tasted them and liked them very much. They were creamy inside, with a high oil content, a good consistency – it was not fibrous – and a nutty aftertaste. That’s where Rudie saw the commercial vein.
“Rudolph, in addition to having a full-time job, was a salesman. He would send kids out to the corner at West Road and Hacienda Road with wooden crates to sell avocados. He sold wherever he could: to his friends, to his co-workers at the post office,” Kimball recounts.
Plaque recognising Rudolph Hass’s contribution to the California avocado industry, placed next to the Hass avocado mother tree.IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
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The California Avocado Society and the state historical society recognised Rudolph Hass’s contribution to the industry with a plaque placed next to the mother tree in La Habra Heights. The tree is no longer there, it died in 2002 and was cut down, but the plaque remains.
He struggled at first because of the look, but gradually more and more people were won over.
“Mr. Carter from the avocado company came and encouraged Rudie to do a test. He mailed a box to Chicago and back (…) and when he returned they were still solid,” his wife wrote in the family memoir.
That got him excited, because until then the avocado shipments sent to the northeast of the country arrived in poor condition, overripe or with bruises that accelerated their rotting.
The Hass legacy
In 1935 he decided to patent his avocado as a new variety and named it after himself. He then partnered with Harold Brokaw, Rideout’s uncle with large plantations in the area, to expand Hass production.
Drawing of the Hass avocado included in the patent granted in 1935.
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Rudolph Hass was granted a patent for his avocado variety in 1935.
It was not a big deal. By August 1952, when the patent rights expired, Rudie had earned only about US$4,800.
“The name stuck, but the money never came,” says Jeff Hass, one of his grandsons.
In June 1952 he had retired from his job at the post office and, in gratitude after more than a quarter century as an employee, the Pasadena post office announced it would give him a certificate of appreciation.
That got him excited, because until then the avocado shipments sent to the northeast of the country arrived in poor condition, overripe or with bruises that accelerated their rotting.
In November of that year the certificate arrived, but Rudie had died a month earlier of a heart attack.
The Hass variety now accounts for 95% of the avocados produced in the world, according to Peter Shore, vice president of product management at Calavo, a company founded by California avocado growers. And it is a multi-billion dollar industry.
Fruit and vegetable market in Mexico selling avocados.IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
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Mexico is the world’s largest producer of avocados and Hass avocados specifically.
“There are millions and millions of Hass avocado trees, and they all come from that original tree,” Shore says. after more than a quarter-century as an employee, the Pasadena post office announced it would give him a certificate of appreciation.
That got him excited, because until then the avocado shipments sent to the northeast of the country arrived in poor condition, overripe or with bruises that accelerated their rotting.
Rudie creía que su aguacate Hass era del tipo guatemalteco, pero un estudio publicado en 2019 sobre su genoma aseguró que el origen de este fruto es 61% mexicano y 39% guatemalteco.
Rudie believed his Hass avocado was a Guatemalan type, but a study published in 2019 on its genome found that the fruit’s origin is 61% Mexican and 39% Guatemalan.
“The Mexican genes allow Hass to reach maturity earlier than pure Guatemalan cultivars and give more cold tolerance to the tree and fruit, although not as much as a pure Mexican cultivar. The Guatemalan genes give the fruit a thicker skin, but thin enough to peel easily,” notes the book Avocado Production in California. A Cultural Handbook for Growers, published by the University of California and the California Avocado Society.
The mother tree eventually became diseased and had to be cut down in 2002.
PUBLISHED BY BBC World
