How to improve avocado yields?

• Written by Linda Greyling and Nico Engelbrecht

South Africa’s subtropical belt produces some of the most dynamic, quality-driven avocados in the world, but it is also exposed to heat spikes, dry spells, salinity pressure in irrigation water, and the perennial challenge of converting flowers into packable fruit. In this context, growers have steadily adopted Kelpak® Liquid Seaweed Biostimulant as a management tool to support tree performance and improve marketable yield, while staying within label-based, field-proven practice.

Across multiple trials, Kelpak® has been shown to help trees cope with abiotic stress and to lift total marketable yield, without compromising fruit size or weight. These outcomes are particularly relevant in alternate-bearing cultivars and in hotter, drier production zones. Published summaries highlight improvements in growth of young trees, fruit set and retention, and harvest numbers, with the net effect being more fruit reaching pack-out standards. For growers, the most telling metric is delivered yield. In South African and international datasets, Kelpak programmes have produced notable gains:

• In a yearbook summary of commercial and independent trials, two foliar applications at 0.4% delivered a 24% yield increase (from 10.34 t/ha to 12.83 t/ha), alongside a 34.7% value increase (about $6 084/ha in that trial set)


• In broader avocado brochures and case studies, improved pack-out due to larger fruit translated into an average income increase of 57% where blocks received two foliar sprays at 4 L/ha