Queensland Hass maturity monitoring begins as Shepard maturity monitoring ends 

Above, a graph showing Hass dry matter levels from fruit sampled during the first two weeks of April 2025. 

The AV22011 wholesale maturity monitoring program is continuing, with the first Queensland Hass samples of the season sampled for maturity monitoring. In the first 2 weeks of April, 9 samples of Queensland Hass have been sampled. 6 of these samples fell below the industry standard of 23% dry matter. 

Well done to growers Blue Sky Produce and B & T Canniford whose fruit was sampled and exceeded the minimum maturity standard since the last Guacamole update. 

Regarding these results customers and suppliers are urged to put in place measures to monitor orchard blocks and supply mature fruit. Past consumer research shows that marketing immature reduces consumer acceptance of avocados from 95% to 70% and can delay repeat purchase by up to 6 weeks. 

To ensure consumers have the best eating experience, ensure that fruit you harvest meets the minimum dry matter standards of 21% for Shepard and 23% for Hass. Continue to monitor your dry matter levels as your harvest progresses. More information on dry matter testing is available HERE. 

Figure 1. Shepard dry matter levels from fruit sampled during March 2025 

 
3 samples of North Queensland Shepard were collected in March, with 1 of these samples falling below the industry standard of 21% dry matter. 10 Shepard samples from Central Queensland and 1 sample from South Queensland were collected, with all samples being above the dry matter standard (Figure 1).  

Figure 2. Maluma dry matter levels from fruit sampled during March and the first week of April 2025. 

7 samples of North and Central Queensland Maluma (all from North and Central Queensland) were tested during March, with all but 1 sample falling below the industry standard of 23% dry matter (Figure 2).

 

Quality further increases as Shepard season continues to be strong 

Australian-grown avocados continued to show excellent quality throughout March, with 98% of fruit deemed acceptable—up slightly from 97% in February and 96% in January. The retail shift to Shepard avocados is well underway, with nearly 75% of samples in March being Shepards, which had a very high acceptability rate of 99%. The remaining samples were WA-grown Hass, which performed well at 95% acceptable. 

Among the Hass avocados, the only major quality issue was body rots. For Shepards, stem end rots and bruising were the only defects observed at unacceptably high levels.  

For comparison, in March 2024, Hass made up a larger share of the samples (44%), and overall fruit acceptability was about 6% lower than in March 2025, with all individual defects being at higher levels in March 2024 (Figure 3). 

Review more detail of the March quality monitoring results HERE. 

Figure 3. Acceptable Australian avocados in March 2024 and March 2025

 

For further information on retail and wholesale monitoring, contact Adam Goldwater from Applied Horticultural Research (adam.goldwater@ahr.com.au), or Anne Larard (idm@avocado.org.au) from Avocados Australia.

---

This article appears as part of the 11 April 2025 issue of the Guacamole enewsletter.