Mexico avocado export season

Effectively year-round. The main Michoacán crop peaks from about October to March, and the flor loca, the off-bloom crop, carries the middle of the year at lower volume.

The reason is altitude. Michoacán orchards sit between 1,200 and 2,300 metres, and that spread gives four overlapping blooms, each with its own harvest. By the industry’s own calendar, flor loca is picked from June to September and aventajada from September to November. The normal crop runs from September to February and marceña from March to June. Fruit can also hang on the tree for up to six months, so growers can hold it back when prices are weak.

Two states matter. Michoacán grew 75% of the 2025 crop and Jalisco 10%, and they are the only states allowed to ship to the United States; Jalisco joined in July 2022. Hass is 97% of production. The US export year runs from 1 July. It opens on flor loca fruit from the higher orchards, and by mid-October it is all normal-crop fruit.

Almost 90% of export volume goes to the United States, and Canada, Japan and Central America take most of the rest. For a European buyer that is the practical point: Mexico sets the world price, but it ships only a small share of its crop to Europe. The US trade is also a single point of failure. Access depends on SENASICA certifying orchards and US inspectors checking fruit in the packhouse. Twice it has stopped. In February 2022 exports halted for about a week after an inspector in Uruapan was threatened. In June 2024 they stopped for ten days after two inspectors were attacked at a blockade.

Weather moves size more than timing. About 65% of orchards are rain-fed. In 2024 summer heat and drought gave smaller fruit. USDA expects a possible El Niño in the second half of 2026 to bring drier conditions and heat spikes that could cut sizes again.

On a long sea voyage the fruit is shipped mature-green. UC Davis gives 5–13°C for mature-green avocados depending on cultivar and time in store. Hass can be held at 5–7°C for nine weeks in a controlled atmosphere of 2% oxygen and 3–5% carbon dioxide, then ripened at 20°C. Colder is not safer: fruit held at 0–2°C for more than a week suffers chilling injury.

Mexico is the reason there is no global avocado season. It also means that when Peru’s window opens in April, European buyers are choosing between origins on price rather than on availability, which is not true of most produce on this page.