Talk:Avocado

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Avocado article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2: 60 days

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Plants High‑importance

	Plants portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Plants, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of plants and botany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PlantsWikipedia:WikiProject PlantsTemplate:WikiProject Plantsplant articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Food and drink High‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Food and drink, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of food and drink related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Food and drinkWikipedia:WikiProject Food and drinkTemplate:WikiProject Food and drinkFood and drink articles

High

This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Food and Drink task list:

To edit this page, select here

Here are some tasks you can do for WikiProject Food and drink:

Help bring these Top Importance articles currently B Status or below up to GA status: Agaricus bisporus (i.e. mushroom), Beef, Bread, Curry, Drink, Food, Ham and eggs, Soy sauce, Sushi, Yogurt
Bring these Top Importance articles currently at GA status up to FA status: Beer, French cuisine, Sugar
Bring these High Importance articles currently at GA status up to FA status: Apple, Burger King, Fish
Participate in project-related deletion discussions.
Delete unrelated trivia sections found in articles. Please review WP:Trivia and WP:Handling trivia to learn how to do this.
Add the {{WikiProject Food and drink}} project banner to food and drink related articles and content to help bring them to the attention of members. For a complete list of banners for WikiProject Food and drink and its child projects, select here.
Provide photographs and images for Category:Wikipedia requested images of food
Consider joining this project's Assessment task force. List any project ideas in this section

Note: These lists are transcluded from the project's tasks pages.

Mexico Mid‑importance

	Mexico portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mexico, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Mexico on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MexicoWikipedia:WikiProject MexicoTemplate:WikiProject MexicoMexico articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Indigenous peoples of the Americas Mid‑importance

	Indigenous peoples of the Americas portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the Americas, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Indigenous peoples of the Americas on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Indigenous peoples of the AmericasWikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the AmericasTemplate:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the AmericasIndigenous peoples of the Americas articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Etymology

The etymology section in this article is within the scope of the Etymology task force, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of etymology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EtymologyWikipedia:WikiProject Linguistics/EtymologyTemplate:Etymology sectionEtymology articles

Sentence doesn't belong

This seems very weird. It breaks up the flow of the article and it just seems like an advertisement for this random product.

"A line of US-produced dog and cat food, AvoDerm, uses oils and meal made from avocado meat as main ingredients." 173.24.77.12 (talk) 18:21, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agree.

Deleted. Zefr (talk) 19:10, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! 173.24.77.12 (talk) 22:16, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The idea with the ground sloths is just oft-recited speculation

... according to SciShow who posted a correction video on their earlier content about this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpcBgYYFS8o). They say there was never any actual data that backed up that claim but it was a speculation in an old scientific paper and got copied on and on... Maybe worth a look? 37.82.7.116 (talk) 37.82.7.116 (talk) 19:34, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The statement attributing to Janzen and Barlow on the evolutionary anachronism for avocados having likely coevolved with "now-extinct megafauna in South America, notably giant ground sloths and the gomphothere genus of the elephant lineage", is widely accepted by taxonomists, as explained and sourced in the first two paragraphs of the Taxonomy section. No change is needed. Zefr (talk) 19:51, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That is not quite correct, Zefr.

In this section, it is stated: In 1982, evolutionary biologist Daniel H. Janzen concluded that the avocado is an example of an "evolutionary anachronism", a fruit adapted for ecological relationship with now-extinct large mammals (such as giant ground sloths or gomphotheres), source is PMID 17790450. But in that paper avocado isn't even mentioned. Only giant ground sloths were shorty mentioned, but definitely not avocados.

As for Barlow, this is also confusing. She pointed out that Robert E. Cook, was citing Janzen and Martin: "Cook published an essay in 1982 in Natural History that described the avocado, Persea americana, as an ecological anachronism". But even she did not establish a relationship between giant ground sloths and avocados. And we don't know that Cook was referring to those slots. Do you have Cook's essay from 1982?

So it seems like someone simply connected thereafter avocados and those slots (acc. to SciShow in the 2000s, which must be Barlow's "The ghosts of evolution: nonsensical fruit, missing partners, and other ecological anachronisms").

What is not helping is the way this article makes a statement, even the page number of Barlow's book is missing (which is a strong sign that it was simply put as reference without having read anything from it). Also the other reference (Nigel-Wolstenholme, #31) is weak: The authors only speculate that "certainly Persea spp. have seeds and fruits with at least some of Janzen and Martin's (1982) megafaunal dispersal syndrome characteristics". But this is too weak to demonstrate that giant sloths were distributing avocado seeds. --Julius Senegal (talk) 20:29, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's always a fascinating inference about what animals may have been the dispersers. The 2023 Berdugo ref on genomics states "our data are consistent with long-distance dispersal mediated by big mammals such as the giant ground slots that inhabited the Americas during the Pleistocene." Your specific suggestions for clarification would be welcome. Zefr (talk) 21:22, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just did a search for sources disagreeing with the megafauna theory. It looks like the megafauna theory is still the scientific consensus. The SciShow video cites a conference proceeding titled Lestodon doesn't want your avocado toast: debunking the dietary myths of late Pleistocene sloths, which is the only academic source I can find about the alternative theory. Since there aren't any peer-reviewed articles (unless I'm missing one) about this theory, it doesn't look like it warrants inclusion in the Wikipedia article. Unless sources are published in the future. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 00:15, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Mexican Avocado Dispute" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Mexican Avocado Dispute has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 June 21 § Mexican Avocado Dispute until a consensus is reached. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:37, 21 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

New Graph on Avocado trends over the years in USA (2015 - 2023)

This visualization provides an insight into the development of avocado sales in the United States between 2015 and 2023. The graph shows the amount of avocado units sold over the years in terms of volume, avocado types and price.

Sales are divided into two types of avocados, differentiated in the graph in terms of colour: conventional avocados and organic avocados. Conventional refers to avocados grown using agricultural methods that may include the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilisers. Organic refers to avocados grown with organic agricultural practices.

Robertaflo99 (talk) 09:41, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]