I was already thinking of writing a blog piece on this same topic, but it looks like NPR beat me to it. I agree with their assessment, except for the focus on pollinators…. not that they aren’t important. Bee population has been a concern, but with an avalanche of small fruit, clearly there were sufficient numbers this past year to do the job. Pollination problems would have shown up as small numbers of individual fruit … a “poor set” as growers would say, not the “heavy set” that we experienced.
Quick aside: Glad to see the talked to Jim Donovan at Mission Produce. Mission handles our avocado crop