Is there a difference in the actual meaning of these two sentences (average x mean)?

Question

I'm really confused about if these two sentences actually mean the same, and if they're really interchangeable. I'm writing a scientific paper to be published in an Agronomy Journal.
"Mean fruit mass".
"Average fruit mass".
Looking for both sentences, for example, on Google Scholar, the sentence "average fruit mass" hits more results, although, to me, "mean fruit mass" sounds more correct.
Appreciate any help.

Elliot · Accepted Answer

You certainly know the mean is calculated in the same way as the average: sum of n terms divided my n. But several variations, described in the source below, are used to prevent numbers, very high or low, from skewing the results. Though the mean is commonly called the average in conversation there are subtle reasons they are not identical. In your scientific paper it should be referred to as the mean. The reason that average shows up much more in searches is that it is the common near synonym, as well as being less likely to be confused with mean, as in a mean Mr. Mustard, who is certainly far from average.
https://sciencing.com/difference-between-mean-average-6461324.html

jsw29 · Answer

This depends totally on register. Outside the maths etc domain, 'average' defaults to 'mean' and is the more usual term. But in more precisionist registers, 'mean' is a hyponym of 'average', along with 'median', 'mode', perhaps 'midmark' (and possibly other statistics of central tendency).
(answer by Edwin Ashworth, originally posted as a comment)

Is there a difference in the actual meaning of these two sentences (average x mean)?

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