Avocado Update: Pits Have Shoots

Well the avocado pits now have shoots. Apparently both shoots sprouted at about the same time. There was not even a day between them.

Water
I had to move the pit that was in water from the cup to a jar. There is a small shoot.




Avocado Pit in Water
Soil
The pit grown in soil has a longer shoot and the root found its way out of one of the drainage holes




Avocado Pit in Soil
Conclusion
Apparently, there is no difference whether you grow the avocado pit in water or in soil, just leave the skin on. But I did realize, putting the pit in water, it was much easier to see it's progress and when it needed more water.



Side by Side

What's Next?
Well I'm going to transfer the soil pit to a larger pot but I'm going to keep the water pit in water. I will make my decision when to transfer it to a pot when the jar is full of roots or when the shoot is 1 ft tall, which ever comes first. Like how most Internet instructions say, once it reaches 1 ft I will trim it down to 6 to 8 inches.

Avocado Pit Experiment

Back in November I decided to start a little experiment to test different growing methods of avocado pits. Browsing the Internet the 2 most popular methods are suspending the avocado pit by toothpicks in water, or planting it halfway in potting soil. Several websites also suggest peeling off the skin. I got 4 avocado pits and tested the 4 methods.

You can read my intro and an update on Hubpages.

After several months the pits where the skin was peeled off made no growth so I tossed them. The ones with skin both had roots. The one in water had a small root but it had cracked significantly while the one in soil had a much longer root but not much cracking.

Next step is to see which will grow a shoot first. I will keep you updated as soon as I get results.