Andrew a Windfall to State Avocado Growers : Agriculture: Hurricane wiped out Florida’s crop, meaning higher prices for consumers and bigger profits on the fruit in California.

Hurricane Andrew, which destroyed 50,000 homes in Florida, also wiped out that state’s avocado crop, meaning higher prices for consumers but bigger profits for California growers, who last year produced 87% of the nation’s avocados.

“This will clearly have a positive influence on us,” said Rob Wedin, director of operations for Calavo, a farmer’s cooperative in Tustin that markets almost 40% of the avocados grown in California.

In Florida on Monday, the hurricane tore fruit and leaves from avocado trees, which are concentrated in a 10-square-mile area near Homestead, Fla., south of Miami. The trees, Wedin said Wednesday, will need two years to recover fully, although there may be a small harvest in 1993. Florida grew about 12.5% of the nation’s avocados in 1991. That harvest was valued at $27.8 million by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Florida varieties of avocados are sweeter and have a higher water content than those grown in California, leading to speculation about whether shoppers accustomed to the East Coast product will make the switch to the other, said Avi Crane, vice president of the California Avocado Commission in Santa Ana. If they do, they will almost certainly pay more than the $1.29 apiece that avocados now bring.

“It’s supply and demand,” said Lute Miyazaki, president of L.J. Distributors in Santa Fe Springs. “The less there are, the more prices will shoot up.”

California’s avocado harvest was worth about $193 million last year, according to the state Department of Food and Agriculture. Orange County produced about 8.6% of that crop, and San Diego County produced about 45%.

Florida agriculture officials began surveying the damage Wednesday. That state’s avocado crop was producing about 1 million pounds a day when the storm hit, officials said, compared to about 5 million pounds a day coming out of California now.

Grapefruit and oranges, which are grown north of the area devastated by Andrew, were apparently spared, said Ivy Leventhal of the Florida Department of Citrus. “The hurricane passed south of us,” she said.

Limes, tomatoes and nursery plants, which are also grown in the Homestead area, were reportedly damaged. That affects California only minimally, however, Miyazaki said. The state has only a small lime crop. It produced $875 million in tomatoes in 1991, according to the Department of Food and Agriculture. It does not compete directly with Florida, however, because the two states harvest at different times of the year. Florida tomato growers will have time to replant for the November-to-May season, Miyazaki said.