Thirty years ago, Ken Spackman cut down an avocado tree planted by his father on the family’s Palmwoods property on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. He planted a seed from the tree in a different spot on the farm, with no expectation it would flourish.
“That seed did it pretty tough – no water, no fertiliser,” recalls neighbour John Mongan. “But a tree grew from nothing, alone and out of the way, so it must have been lucky.”
So lucky that Palmwoods now produces avocados of extraordinary size and staying power, often weighing 1.2kg apiece – three times the size of average avos.
Jala avocados keep 10 times longer after being sliced because of curiously slow-oxidation rates. Best of all, they reputedly taste fantastic.
“Big but tasty, firm yet creamy, a bit nutty but well balanced,” says Paige Fleming, whose nursery will start selling Jala trees nationally for the first time in March 2025. “No stringiness or mushiness. They are totally unique and tick every box an avocado can.”
‘Serendipitous act of nature’
With its fine soil and reliable rainfall, the lush and undulating hinterland of Palmwoods is fertile land for growing pineapples, bananas, citrus, ginger and strawberries. Spackmans have farmed here since 1906.
Ken Spackman died in 2001, but his wife, Lorna, developed the Jala brand from that lucky tree.
“After Ken died the tree was somewhat neglected,” Lorna Spackman admits. “It grew and fruited similar to its parent but most of the fruit it produced fell to the ground. Four seeds germinated and grew into seedlings. In a serendipitous act of nature, one of these bore fruit of exceptional size, flavour and texture.”
Spackman gave a few giants to Mongan, who says “they were bloody delicious!”
Mongan found that a single avocado three times larger than the standard Shepard or Hass would last an entire week.
“I didn’t wrap it when I put it back in the fridge,” he says. “I’d just ring it like a pineapple each morning and put it on toast.” Even without lemon, the big avos didn’t oxidise like others. “Straight off the tree, they kept fresh for months.”
With Spackman’s help, Mongan trialled growing Jala saplings from seed, grafting on bloodwood to accelerate growth. “I gave some to Lorna and kept a few. The fruit came on fast. Pretty soon we had too much for the market and started giving them away. One day I had agents up from [Queensland’s central wholesale fruit and vegetable market] Brisbane Markets about my limes. They saw a Jala in my kitchen and got very interested.”
Mongan’s original trial plot of Jalas now numbers 300, of which 130 bear regular fruit. “With avos, like racehorses, it takes thousands before you find one that’s a real champion,” he says. “But Jala trees fruit fast and are super hardy.”
When Fleming’s, a fourth-generation nursery, grafted its own batch of 1,700 Jala trees for Queensland release in September, they sold out within hours.
“I’d say 99.5% of the trees we test have no potential in the market, but the Jala is special,” says Leanne Gillies, a 30-year veteran of Fleming’s research and innovation division. “It can grow beyond a kilo and eats beautifully once picked, with a firm texture and luscious flavour. The best part – and the biggest mystery – is it doesn’t go brown immediately after you cut it.”
Shelf appeal
Avocados are worth $11bn a year globally, with Australia producing 10,685 tonnes of the fruit, mostly in Western Australia and Queensland. Australians consume an average of 4.5kg of this cafe staple a year. The Australian crop for 2023-24 was forecast to grow 20% on the previous year (sending prices lower for growers), with further expansion on the way. By 2030, the avocado is tipped to be the world’s most traded tropical fruit.
To be commercially viable, Jala must meet strict criteria for supply, storage and transport. “We’ve noticed the Jala’s skin declines quite quickly even though the flesh within stays fresh, ripe and firm for much longer than other avocados do,” Gillies says. “That trait may affect its ‘shelf appeal’ for big supermarkets although it hasn’t stopped global inquiries coming in.”
Jala won Best New Product at the 2024 Greenlife/Nursery & Garden Industry awards, but Fleming insists it will stay true to its humble origins for now – “an avocado for the people”. She is priming 5,000 new Jala trees for sale into NSW, Victoria and Tasmania in March.
“For Lorna, this is an accidental journey,” Gillies says. “She’s surprised and humbled by the attention. For her, the Jala was just a hobby after Ken passed away, an interesting tree that might have made her a few bucks. Not in a thousand years did she expect big awards and media and international attention.
“She’s blown away, equal parts excited and overwhelmed.”
As for Ken, Lorna Spackman says her husband was “a very quiet person and he’d be shrugging off all the fuss”. She knows those saplings survived only because she was grieving while they were growing.
“The irony is Ken would have weeded out under-tree growth,” she says. “So Jala exists purely due to fate, Mother Nature and a few humans who believed.”
