Small Avocado Harvest Pushes Up Market Price : Farming: Growers whose crops weathered the 1990 frost and heat wave can expect to earn almost twice as much as last year.

Adverse weather produced the smallest avocado crop in a decade this year, but growers expect to exceed last year’s revenues because the buttery-textured pear-shaped fruit is fetching record high prices at supermarkets.

Growers who weathered the double whammy of a Valentine’s Day frost and a May heat wave with all or part of their crops intact can expect to earn an average of $1.05 per pound for the fiscal year ending Oct. 31, the California Avocado Commission in Santa Ana estimates.

That is significantly higher than the 62 cents a pound growers averaged last fiscal year, and it marks the first time ever the average price has exceeded $1 a pound.

The high prices are being passed on at the supermarkets, where consumers can expect to pay $1.75 or more apiece for the rubbery-skinned delicacy that has become a mainstay of California cuisine.

Consumers are grumbling, but they are buying anyway, said Paul M.G. Astbury, president of Gibson’s Food Emporium, a gourmet supermarket in Irvine at which large avocados are selling for $1.99 apiece.

“There is nothing you can substitute for an avocado” in many special recipes, he said.

For growers, the limited availability has amounted to agony or ecstasy--depending on how much of their crops they can send to market.

“If you happened to survive the freeze, then you would be making money,” said Dan Lopez, a vice president for the Tustin-based Calavo avocado growing cooperative. “If you were frozen out or affected by the heat, then you are losing money.”

The Feb. 14 freeze ravaged many trees, destroying their ability to produce avocados this year. Then, just as the trees were flowering came the May heat wave. Flowers wilted and dropped, cutting the size of the projected crop by half within a few days.

The commission estimates that this year’s crop is expected to total 210 million pounds, more than 100 million pounds fewer than the previous low--312 million pounds for fiscal 1982.

The experience of California’s largest avocado grower, Treasure Farms in Irvine, typifies that of the industry as a whole. Orchard Manager Alan Reynolds said the grower’s 1,200 acres of avocado groves produced about a third of their normal crops by the time harvesting was completed in August.

“This 1990 crop we’re finishing up has been fairly hard on everybody,” Reynolds said. “Some people make out OK, but there are other people who have almost nothing per acre.”

Compounding growers’ weather-related headaches is the fact that thieves have discovered that money does indeed grow on trees. Growers are having to go to new lengths to protect their groves.

Avi Crane, commission director of industry affairs, said that in San Diego County, the state’s heaviest avocado-producing region, growers are being protected by an industry-sponsored avocado task force within the Sheriff’s Department. The commission has created a $740,000 fund to protect groves in the state. Crane estimates that avocado rustling costs growers more than $10 million a year.

Reynolds said Treasure Farms, which grows avocados on land leased from the Irvine Co., has taken extra security precautions, among them fencing some of its groves.

Although the industry is reaping a strong return from a scant crop, industry officials say the low yields are hurting the industry’s ability to serve all of its markets. Lopez of Calavo said the lack of supply has prompted some supermarkets to give avocados smaller displays. He also said that institutional food services have been loyal but that they are having trouble affording to put avocado on restaurant and banquet menus.

So far, industry officials say, foreign crops have had little impact on the shortage of California avocados.

For cash-short avocado lovers, there is a ray of hope. Next year’s crop is expected to be 50% bigger--that is, if there is not another bout of adverse weather, Crane said. That would yield a projected total output of 315 million pounds, still behind the industry average of about 400 million pounds.

But, he added warily, “the only one who knows is Mother Nature.”

AVACADO HARVEST TAKES A DIP

This year’s avacado crop is California’s smallest in a decade because of bad weather--a frost last winter and extreme heat this summer. The drop in supply, however, has caused prices to soar at the supermarket to nearly double what they were two years ago.

Grower’s price per pound:

‘81: 17

‘90*: $1.05

* Estimated

Crop Value Year** (millions of pounds) (millions of dollars) 1981 475.5 $82.9 1982 312.6 106.2 1983 402.8 90.3 1984 492.5 87.6 1985 396.9 115.1 1986 319.2 160.3 1987 555.7 93.8 1988 357.9 203.9 1989 327.6 205.8 1990* 210.0 220.0

* Estimated ** Fiscal year ending Oct. 31 Source: California Avacado Comission