Deep Water Culture Avocado Tree From Seed In A Re-purposed Vacuum Cleaner

About two and half years ago, we were making some guacamole and decided that rather than throw out the seed like we normally do, we'd give it a try growing it. Most times, these experiments with seeds from store bought fruit don't last more than a few weeks, but fortunately this one took a different path.

February 10, 2018 Age: ~2.5 years

To add to the fun, rather than plant it in soil, we decided to use an alternative method: deep water culture.

We've become well versed in this method, using it to cultivate cannabis and small leaf vegetables, but we've wanted to try it with other, particularly larger, fruit bearing plants and trees. Besides producing optimal growing conditions, the technique offers significant water conservation. It is one of our long term goals to determine if this technique could be viable for large scale farming.

To make it just a little more interesting, we re-purposed a broken shop vacuum by removing some internal parts and spray painting it green. Now it's a ~20 gallon reservoir. It even comes with a removable cap to drain the tank when the nutrients have been consumed and salts start to build up.

Re-purposed shop vacuum made into reservoir

One interesting aspect to deep water culture technique is that because the roots are submerged in water, it requires a method of oxygenating the water. We use an air pump and that's what the small blue object is behind the reservoir, mostly visible in the first photo.

Avocado tree leaf - showing signs of nutrient deficiency

Unfortunately, over the winter we were a little too ginger with the nutrients and so you can see in the photo above that the plant is showing some signs of nutrient deficiency. (light green lines in the veins of the leaf - most likely nitrogen deficiency) Part of the funstration(fun+frustration) in growing something new or using a new technique is the back and forth challenge to find the happy balance for the plant. Fortunately, the plant has since received a fresh batch of nutrients, just in time for the start of spring.

Avocado trees can take anywhere from 5-13 years before bearing fruit, so it may be a while before we see anything edible. That said, from those who have observed the size of the tree, they've commented that it is larger than what they would expect for a tree so young. Hopefully that's the deep water culture working its magic!

Here's a photo of what it looked like in November of 2016:

Avocado tree, ~1.5 years old

And one in August of 2016:

Avocado tree, ~1 year old

Hope you enjoyed this update on our avocado tree - upvotes, resteems and follows are much appreciated. It'll help us keep more of this content coming. Thanks!