Arka Coorg Ravi

Arka Coorg Ravi is ICAR-IIHR Chettalli's second dedicated avocado release, notified in 2022 after the accession catalogued as CHES PA XIII-1 was found superior across more than twenty years of on-station evaluation. It is a B-type variety — its flowers open and function as male in the morning and as female in the afternoon of the following day, complementary to an A-type variety like Arka Supreme, so planting the two together improves cross-pollination and fruit set. Its defining trait is a notably smaller seed relative to fruit size, which lifts pulp recovery to around 80% — well above a typical avocado — even though its oil content (12–14%) runs lower than Arka Supreme's. Fruit is larger, averaging 450–600 g, and a well-managed mature tree can yield 150–200 kg per season, with some reports of 100–180 kg per plant against roughly 60–80 kg/tree for conventional, older avocado plantings.

Plant typeGrafted planting material (B-type flowering)
MaturityBears in 3–4 years as a grafted plant
Yield potential150–200 kg/mature tree
Disease resistanceNot specifically documented; standard drainage and orchard hygiene manage Phytophthora root rot risk
SoilLoam
SeasonAll seasons

• Spacing6–12 m depending on site vigour; 10 × 10 m is standard on hill slopes
• FertilizerRoughly 1:1:1 NPK while young, moving to a higher-nitrogen and higher-potash ratio (roughly 2:1:2) once bearing regularly

Actual yield depends on sowing time, soil, irrigation, weather, seed quality and crop management.

• Karnataka

• Arka Supreme

  India's first dedicated avocado release (2020), an A-type (morning-flowering) variety from ICAR-IIHR Chettalli with notably high oil content, after more than twenty years of local evaluation.

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• Hass

  The world's most widely grown commercial avocado cultivar, not an ICAR release — propagated as grafted plants by private Indian nurseries and reported specifically suited to Sikkim's conditions.

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• Fuerte

  A green-skinned cultivar not an ICAR release, reported to grow successfully in the mid-altitude hills of Sikkim; propagated as grafted plants by private nurseries.

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• Purple (local seedling type)

  An older, ungrafted seedling-origin type grown across India's avocado tracts before any formal variety programme existed — purple-skinned at maturity, typically picked around July in Sikkim.

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• Green (local seedling type)

  The green-skinned counterpart to the Purple seedling type, similarly ungrafted and common in older plantings — typically picked around September–October in Sikkim, later in the season than the purple-skinned type.

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