Overview
- A peer-reviewed paper in Plants, People, Planet reports that DNA from Nicaraguan lowland avocado landraces clusters with South American coastal varieties, indicating a shared lineage.
- Field teams collected leaf samples from 47 local landraces and compared them with genetic data from more than 200 avocado lineages to reconstruct relationships among populations.
- The authors interpret the genetic pattern as evidence that people moved and planted South American avocado varieties north into Central America about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.
- Farmers interviewed during the study say native lowland trees rarely show root rot and are sometimes used as rootstock because they are better adapted to warm, wet local conditions.
- The study cautions that the global market relies on the clonally propagated Hass variety from a single 1926 mother tree and recommends conserving and using landrace diversity for breeding and rootstock to reduce disease and climate risk.