There's a tree in the memories of many older Islanders: It's grandpa's or grandma's or auntie's avocado tree, thickly shading a corner of the yard. The old-timers called them "pears," or, in Hawaiian, pea (pay-ah). And the fruit — thick golden meat rimmed with lime green and handed out in bulging paper bags at family gatherings — puts today's supermarket avocados to shame.

Where did all those avocados go?

They're here, along with many cultivated brethren, on small farms concentrated mainly in Kona, but also in the Hilo-Hamakua area on the Big Island, and on Kaua'i and Maui. You find them mostly in farmers markets or, unidentified, on restaurant menus, or fleetingly in the fruit bins of those select supermarkets that have a commitment to local produce and a willingness to deal with seasonality and intermittent supply.

Now a University of Hawai'i research project aims to help local avocado farmers tap the increasing hunger of Islanders for avocados (we eat more than 2 million pounds year) and for locally grown products.

At a blind tasting last week for local chefs at Kevin Hanney's 12th Ave Grill, chefs first tasted, then learned the names of, fall-winter local avocados: particularly Kahalu'u (the hands-down favorite), Linda and Malama.

Kahalu'u is a mammoth fruit with glowing green skin, silk-smooth butter-colored flesh and a rich, slightly citrusy flavor. Farmer and researcher Ken Love of Captain Cook, who lugged 500 pounds of avocados to O'ahu for a series of chef and public tastings last week, said Kahalu'u has triple the oil content of the average avocado, and the sensuous texture shows that.

No one chose the ringer — a Mexican-grown Hass — though chef Roy Yamaguchi was enthusiastic about Hass from Lisa Taniguchi's Rabbit Run Farm at Kealakekua — more flavorful and not woody and watery like the imported variety.

And no one preferred the Sharwill, the most widely grown variety here. According to a Hawai'i Extension Service industry analysis paper published last month, this largish, green, rough-textured variety was widely promoted and propagated in the 1980s, intended for export to the Mainland and Canada, but Hawai'i's fruit-fly problem dimmed that vision. Local avocados can legally be exported to the rest of the country, but they must be treated for fruit- fly infestation, which proved too costly for local farmers, mostly very small family operations.

Love said those old grandpa and grandma varieties, plus many, such as Yamagata, purposely developed for commercial growing, add up to about 1,400 known types that can be grown here; 200 or so are raised in the Kona area. And under the right conditions, we could be eating locally grown varieties year-round, he said, displaying a chart that showed nine cultivars that collectively cover the year growing in different climates and at different elevations.

The right conditions include a cluster of strategies suggested in the Hawaii Avocado Industry Analysis paper co-authored by Love with UH professor Catherine Chan-Halbrendt, Florida State University professor Pauline Sullivan and graduate student Jyotsna Krishnakumar (who has become adept at identifying avocado varieties by sight):