Opinion
The following opinion does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Avocado Growers of California (AGC), its Board members, officers, or employees. This is solely the opinion of the author.
New 'Luna' Avocado Variety; A Co-inventor's Story
By Gray Martin, Former UCR avocado Scientist, Horticulturist, and Co-inventor of BL516 ('Luna' variety)
I've been an AGC (Avocado Growers of CA) sustaining member from the beginning. It has recently become clear to me how vulnerable growers in my southern region are to demise, as the crisis is no longer pending--it is present. This fact helps explain to me why my voice clamoring for more horticultural topics, examination of new and future varieties, high-density plantings, renewed tree training, pruning practices, etc. has mostly been downplayed. My experience with AGC is there is never enough monthly meeting time to do complete justice to the many topics that confront growers: Water, regulation, pricing, imports, government assistance, sponsor talks, official business, horticulture, etc. This fact underscores the vital need and relevance of AGC. At the January 25th, AGC meeting, the agenda cited Eurosemillas, a Spanish-based licensing arm for all future UC Riverside avocado rootstock and scion varieties, to give an overview of the "new" Luna avocado variety. For this, Eurosemillas requested the assistance of Dr. Marylu Arpaia, a listed inventor and royalty recipient. Full disclosure: I too am a co-inventor and a potential royalty recipient, although I refused to sign the patent agreement for almost a year until repeatedly told through an ombudsman (UC mediator) that the patent was "going ahead with or without my approval". What follows is my rebuttal to the presentation.
This is truly a saga. Therefore, I prefer you read these accounts simply in a historical context. I mean as a form of detached entertainment, not with any sense of personal affront or injustice. We will just run through some of the California avocado history, be impartial, and become better informed. In Jan 1997 after working with UCR for 13 years I decided it was time to move on. Dr. Bob Bergh had retired some years earlier, so I discussed with him the prospect of submitting a handful of 'Record of Invention' (ROI) forms on five of the most promising future varieties. An ROI is a required document, before patenting, authenticating inventorship. Three years earlier I had filed two with the 'Lamb/Hass' and 'Sir Prize' patents (1994). You may recognize one of the five ROIs: '3-29-5' ('GEM'). Others included: 'Harvest', 'Nobel', 'Marvel' (now 'Luna') and a green skin '5-552'. There was much more genetic material in the program, but this group comprised a full spectrum of quality cultivars useful for future research and quick release. For the next 20-plus years, I concentrated on creating a new California sweet dragon fruit program. Today I and my business partner grow 25 acres of red sweet dragon fruit using my personally bred proprietary varieties under the brand name Calif. Sweet Dragon. In February 2022, out of the blue, I was mailed a patent application from UC Technology Transfer for 'BL516' ('Luna'). I recall responding the same day stating that it was poorly written and did not correspond with my 25-year-old memory. This began a series of email exchanges where I was told that since I was no longer employed with UC no information was required to be communicated. I repeat: No access to data, no access to research sites, no access to license agreements using my inventions, and no answers to the many questions and concerns I raised.
OK, it was time for an end run. I circumvented the system by requesting access from the Botany Department Chairperson who granted me visitation to my old stomping grounds at the Irvine UC Field Station. I also acquired a UC Ombudsman who incorporated a supervisor hoping to gain a response to my many concerns about the proposed patent. The visit to the field site validated my hunch that something was amiss. The trees appeared stunted, chlorotic, and low yielding. I logged thousands of hours at this Irvine research facility, and under Dr. Bergh's inclusive directive, we welcomed regular visitations from the Calif. Avo Society (CAS) Nursery and Variety Committee, the CAS BOD, and growers interested in research participation. A signed non-propagation agreement was all that was required to collaborate., and it worked superbly. This system led to the enormously quick commercialization of 'Lamb/Hass' in 1994. For comparison, the 'BL516' ('Luna') is a selection I called 'Marvel', short for marvelous, originated only two rows, approx. 50 feet distance from 'BL122' or 'Lamb/Hass', grown on the Robert Lamb Ranch, Camarillo beginning in 1985. I selected 'BL516' two years after my initial selection of BL122 and one year before my selection of '3-29-5' ('GEM'). I received the majority of my funding from California Avocado Commission Research Assessment dollars. California taxpayers financed Dr. Bergh and the facility we both worked in at UCR. 26 years after leaving healthy producing trees and years of performance data with UC, I now found myself standing in a poor-condition research site asking for data and being told "none" had been published. But I had a circulating Eurosemillas pamphlet 'Green Motion', provided to select handlers, citing the Irvine yield data! The same data is the foundation of the 'Luna' patent and was presented to members of AGC at the Jan. meeting.
Over the years I have become increasingly skeptical of UC data presented in metric, therefore when I am presented with metric values, particularly on-screen during presentations, I examine the data very closely. Please Google 'BL516' avocado patent. Scroll down to yield data in Table 2. Calculate yield in pounds per acre (This requires converting kilograms to pounds, dividing by the number of years of production, 7, and multiplying by 100 to get the average yield per acre). For Exeter, these results are 1,690 lbs. per acre for 'Hass', and 933 lbs. for 'Luna'. These are abysmal production numbers and only prove that Exeter data is invalid. In Irvine, a historically productive location, Hass yields are 4,554 lbs./Ac and 'Luna' 4,123 lbs./Ac. Both values are well short of the industry average of 6,000 lbs. So, I must ask (and I did), how does the data show a pollinizer effect enhancing yield? Repeatedly whenever I asked UC a question that required an answer that might look unfavorable to the intention of patenting 'Luna', the goalposts would shift. So, initially, the emphasis of 'Luna' was on the premise that the opposite flower type would enhance yield, but since no data resulted to support this premise, the emphasis shifted to 'Luna' being a smaller tree, suitable for high-density plantings. OK, I then would ask: "Where are any high-density data?" By extension, if 'Luna' is pollinizing 'Hass' trees, then 'Hass' is pollinizing 'Luna', so without the presence of close 'Hass' how much fruit does 'Luna' produce in high-density fields? And, with the 'Luna' as a precocious (Flowering as a first-year nursery tree) small-sized tree—more difficult to establish than non-precocious trees like 'Hass'--high-density plantings entail a big risk, especially with no supporting data! Lastly (and I have so much more to say: Fruit size, fruit quality, and seasonality), the entire story of the "new" 'Luna', heavily promoted by UC and Eurosemillas, resulted in a Time Magazine's Top 200 Invention of 2023 Award"! Now, look closely at Table 2 footnotes. All the supporting data that is lauded in the UC promotion campaign results from using only three 'Hass' trees for comparative data! One of the two main requests made by me to UC was to have a normal Peer review of the data. I was assured this would take place, but none was conducted!
Contact Gray Martin at basilbestbuy@msn.com
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