FROSTPROOF, Fla. — Two years ago, farmer Mitchell McLellan took a gamble. He decided to stop growing oranges and switched to harvesting avocados for commercial production. Something that has never been done in Central Florida before.
"There are four varieties of avocados that you can grow in Central Florida because of the temperature range. We chose the Choquette because they’re a lot bigger of an avocado,” said Mitchell McLellan, owner of McLellan Farm.
Watch full report from Rebecca Petit
ABC Action News was there when McLellan planted 700 avocado trees in his Frostproof grove in 2023. The trees are now producing their first avocados. The farmer said they are pretty easy to grow, and they grow fast, but he’s had his fair share of challenges.
“We had a little bit of fungus which was due to bringing them from Miami to here. It brought the fungus with them. We had about five or six trees die from a fungus,” said McLellan.
He turned to avocados after losing thousands of dollars in the citrus industry, which was caused by deadly citrus greening disease and Hurricane Ian.
“The final straw was the hurricane. Up to that point we were losing about 15%-20% of our trees a year to greening. Then the hurricane come through and I lost 50% to the hurricane, so that was 70% of the trees I lost,” said McLellan.
The grove will be able to produce more than 100,000 pounds of avocados annually. The farmer knows others are watching his new crop closely.
"If I'm a successful farmer and do produce avocados like they say I can, then I think everybody else will come on board,” he said.
McLellan expects his avocados will be ready for commercial production in three years.
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