Well, the avocado eaters in Thailand are used to gambling with their purchases, but this is ridiculous. 

My last three bags of local (non-Haas) Thai avocados have yielded 100 percent wastage. All went directly from hard to rotten. No even a tiny window of ripeness. 

So these bags in Pattaya generally cost 90 to 100 baht for four or five quite large fruits. The message I've taken is that in this particular season there is no point in buying these bags anymore. Frankly, even in the best of seasons, it's very rare for all of the fruits to turn out to be edible, but sometimes the ratio is high enough.

The alternative of course is to buy imported avocados at about 65 to 95 per smallish fruit. The odds on those are better but not 100 percent.

This isn't really new. It happens every year. But the reason I'm posting is that I recently saw a video from a U.S. avocado grower explaining why this is happening in Thailand. He said it's because the Thai growers are picking the fruits too early (this came up in his reply to a commenter from Thailand). When that is done, apparently, their fate is doomed.  I also learned something surprising. Before I had thought that the reason for the avocado horrors in Thailand was because the fruits were refrigerated while still very hard (even if displayed outside the fridge). It turns out that according to this grower it's totally OK to refrigerate them while still hard  (but not freeze of course!). In fact he suggests that as a strategy for home use. 

Of course there could be other reasons for the problems here. Perhaps they do freeze them. Perhaps the trees are infected in some way. I don't know. 

In other words suppose you got a package of five very hard unripe fruits. He suggests keeping some out and refrigerating the others. Then as you need them, take new ones out of the fridge and give time to ripen. The fridge stopping the ripening process. The theory being that if your package contained fruit picked at the same time, they would ripen all at the same time if left out, giving you too much at once. 

 Another tip to preserve half eaten fruit. Clingy plastic wrap!

Edited March 13, 20215 yr by Jingthing

I feel ya.  Really...I do.  That’s why I pick my avocados one at a time and only when they are at the perfect ripeness based on the “squeeze” method and then bring it home and eat it right then and there.  Won’t even buy two to save one for the next day as the “window of opportunity” is just too small.

Oh...and if you eat half of it, the best way to preserve it is to put the pit back in the uneaten half before throwing it in the fridge.

Share my Australian story which may or may not be of interest. In Australian supermarkets they have a range of fruit and vegetables you can buy called the 'odd bunch'. It is misshapen stuff they used to not sell. Like weird looking carrots.  They have bags of about 10 or 12 really small avocadoes which are just right for one serve and they are cheap. Cheap for Australia. They seem to last a decent time in the 'just right' phase.

If I buy a bigger one and  I need half I would put lemon juice on it to stop browning. 

I find the same problem with stone fruits like some peaches and nectarines. They sell them rock hard so they don't bruise but they just go from hard to mush. Not cool. 

Look out for occasional stalls selling local avocados in your local shopping mall.  In my experience, the people selling the fruit really know their job, and if you ask them to pick for you, they'll ask whether you want it to eat today or tomorrow.  So far, 100% success.