The Tropical Fruit Forum
Tropical Fruit => Tropical Fruit Discussion => Topic started by: nighthawk0911@yahoo.com on July 18, 2019, 10:55:45 AM
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I couldn't help but notice how many of my mango trees & other old mango trees in my coastal 9B area failed to flower or fruit this year. Even the old reliable trees in my neighborhood never even flowered this year. It was a fairly mild winter. It was a weird year. Crepe Myrtles that normally flower in May are just flowering now.
Any thoughts about likely causes?
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It was a strange year for me in the St. Pete area. My Carrie bloomed like crazy and produced only 3 fruits. The Sweetheart Lychee did the same thing and produced no fruit. My Kent produced about 1/3 the normal amount and all the rain we have received has resulted in the majority of them with jelly seed. Weird year. I passed by one house with 12 - 15 Longan trees that were loaded last year. This year not one tree fruited.
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lack of abrupt and lasting cold spells
rainy winter, dry spells trigger flowering
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I wasn't paying close attention to the weather, but it did seem like a mild winter with a lack of very many chill hours.
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Are you using nitrogen based fertilizer
If so change over to potassium based fertilizer
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Same boat. Very few fruitlets and none that held on long enough to ripen. I have seen a lot more than usual in Orlando so maybe my area was an outlier. My Crepes are still blooming, those that did. I have a whole row on one side of my driveway that didn't bloom at all. Even azaleas were unimpressive this year after having a couple years of amazing blooms. Got some work to do but figure Ill wait until fall. Too hot and humid to do heavy lifting during the weekend days and it rains every evening.
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Did they get water during fruitset
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It was a terrible year in my neighborhood in East Miramar. Even reliable old Haden trees were nearly bare. And of my 20-something trees, only one fruited. Not a single bloom on Maha Chanok, my star performer last year. Very disappointing. I'm blaming the warm winter last year. I'm not hoping for freezing temps this winter, but a couple of weeks of cold weather would be greatly appreciated.
Scott
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As I understand this sets trees up to begin a biannual habit.
There are some thought on dealing with that:
https://www.themangofactory.com/growing-mangoes/plantingcare/management-of-biennial-bearing-mangoes-part-4-of-4/ (https://www.themangofactory.com/growing-mangoes/plantingcare/management-of-biennial-bearing-mangoes-part-4-of-4/)
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Im still a newbie here so forgive me if Im wrong, could it have to do with the lack of pollinators in South Florida? All I see is development after development being built on precious plots of land that were most likely passed down to a generation who could care less abour nature.
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I wonder what varieties performed good this year, if it was generally a bad year for mangos in south florida?
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Weird cuz my trees had their best year yet. Could be microclimate by me, or varietal issues? Not sure. I am in East Hollywood. Fairchild, pickering and PPK were loaded this year. Coconut cream did its average thing. And honey kiss is loaded with fruit for its size right now. I did notice plenty of bees around my trees, there is a neighbor a few blocks away that has small hive, wonder if any of those bees are his. Avocado fruiting for first time too and has decent fruit set for its size. Even my Rollinia is loaded heavy this year with zero hand pollination.
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It was a terrible year in my neighborhood in East Miramar. Even reliable old Haden trees were nearly bare. And of my 20-something trees, only one fruited. Not a single bloom on Maha Chanok, my star performer last year. Very disappointing. I'm blaming the warm winter last year. I'm not hoping for freezing temps this winter, but a couple of weeks of cold weather would be greatly appreciated.
Scott
The mild winter in our area is also my primary suspect. None of the trees in my area even flowered and includes a number of different varieties. I suppose even tropical mangoes need a few chill hours to help force them to flower.
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My main producer, a 16 foot or so Glenn, produced 81 mangoes this year. Last year it produced 99 (give or take on both years). The tree is a little bigger this year than last, so it seems more than a 20% decrease in production from last year to this year.
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My trees did pretty good this season , the only tree that didn’t fruit was my Sweet tart mango everything else did good .
Ed
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I'm in central Broward. My Cogshall, maybe 10 years in ground and about 18 feet tall, has always been a spotty producer. Last year she gave up about 90 mangoes. This year, all of one. . .and a squirrel got to it first. LOL
My Pickering, three years in ground, produced about 3 dozen mangoes last year. This summer, about a dozen and surprisingly, a few had jelly seed. :(
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It is most likely the lack of chill hours first and foremost followed by untimely growth flushes which have not hardened and stored enough energy. I’ve posted this article before but it’s very useful for those that have not read it.
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1677-04202007000400007&script=sci_arttext (http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1677-04202007000400007&script=sci_arttext)
The need for maturation of the current growth flush is severely diminished when there is enough chill hours at the appropriate temperature for an appropriate amount of time.
At my specific location in San Diego where it is so cold that Mangos are marginal, I am able to observe lots of strange behaviors that others in warmer locations might not ever see. For example, I have first hand experience with new growth flushes that occur late enough in the year where new vegetative growth hardens and within a few weeks to a month, it will form bloom panicles.
I recently removed the small fruit set from my Ice Cream Mango and it now has vegetative growths but one sprout has a very strange look to it as if it started out as mixed blooms and then reverted back to vegetative growth. This is in the middle of August. I’ll take a picture when I get home.
Simon
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Chill hours??? ??? Mangos are tropical and don't need chill hours. Do you really think they would fruit in Myanmar and southern India, where they are native, if they needed chill hours?
There was a crazy bumper crop this year here in Kona and in Maui, zero chill hours also.
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Here’s a picture of the weird Ice Cream sprout
(https://i.postimg.cc/HJ5gF708/CAF2-C6-FE-C676-4-E4-E-955-F-5-F3-CB75-CD551.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/HJ5gF708)
Simon
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According to Yonemoto, the colder the chill, the more flowers the mango tree produces.
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Yes, I stand by my statement. The original poster stated that many of his Mango trees failed to flower or fruit this year. I ruled out fungal diseases of flower panicles because of this. The OP also stated that it was a fairly mild Winter.
Oscar, have you not seen a correlation between colder Winters and heavier flowering over in Hawaii? Perhaps the varieties that produce well in Hawaii will also perform better in Florida, for the varieties that are more reliant on the cold weather for bloom induction.
Dr Yonemoto over in Japan uses a drop in temperature to induce blooms on his indoor mangos.
I feel the science is pretty solid. I’ve been wrong before and I’m sure I’ll be wrong again but I think the literature backs me up on this.
Simon
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Yes, I stand by my statement. The original poster stated that many of his Mango trees failed to flower or fruit this year. I ruled out fungal diseases of flower panicles because of this. The OP also stated that it was a fairly mild Winter.
Oscar, have you not seen a correlation between colder Winters and heavier flowering over in Hawaii? Perhaps the varieties that produce well in Hawaii will also perform better in Florida, for the varieties that are more reliant on the cold weather for bloom induction.
Dr Yonemoto over in Japan uses a drop in temperature to induce blooms on his indoor mangos.
I feel the science is pretty solid. I’ve been wrong before and I’m sure I’ll be wrong again but I think the literature backs me up on this.
Simon
One thing is for certain. Mangoes don't need cold chill hours, if they did they would never fruit in the tropics, where they are native to. Plant stress does induce flowering in mangoes in their native areas. But this is always caused by long dry spells in winter time, NOT by cold stress. That being said, it's obvious that cold temperatures can also stress mangoes and helps to initiate flowering. I would venture to guess that ideal years would be years when winter is not only very dry but also cool. Even though mangoes are originally from the tropics, they have become adapted to sub tropical areas. Part of this adaptation has to due with being able to be stressed by cool temperatures into flowering, rather than normal stress factor of long expanded dry spells, which they experience in monsoonal climate areas. Girdling branches is another way to stress mango trees into flowering, but is certainly not normally necessary for their flowering in native areas. Such techniques are used when mangoes are grown far from their natural range. Growing mangoes in areas where it is snowing outside, like Japan, inside greenhouses is about as far away from natural situations as you can get.
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Whether mangoes "need" chill hours or not, sudden cool temps are associated with flowering. Certainly appears to be true here in FL. In areas that stay warm year round, dry spells and other triggers are involved in flowering.
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The experience in my area SW Florida was pretty good flowering but very low fruit set. There were exceptions.
There is a big difference between what initiates flowering in subtropical areas and what initiates in tropical areas.
Some of the chemicals used in the tropicas don't work in the subtropics.
There's also lots of variables some can be controlled and some can't.
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1677-04202007000400007&script=sci_arttext (http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1677-04202007000400007&script=sci_arttext)
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I got a fair amount of mangoes, but quite a few went bad during the ripening process. Got a lot of rain in early June, before the fruit were fully ripe, and that may have had something to do with it.
Angie, Fairchild, Pickering, Providence and Honey Kiss were good producers. Mahachanok was moderate. Mallika was poor. Cogshall and NDM were the worst: produced fruit that almost all went bad. They're on my hit list now. The NDM will have a Pickering grafted on to its trunk when a friend has the time to do so. Haven't decided what to graft on to Cogshall - Providence is the top contender for now.
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Oscar, good point about the stresses other than cold that can induce blooms.
Simon
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I got a fair amount of mangoes, but quite a few went bad during the ripening process. Got a lot of rain in early June, before the fruit were fully ripe, and that may have had something to do with it.
Angie, Fairchild, Pickering, Providence and Honey Kiss were good producers. Mahachanok was moderate. Mallika was poor. Cogshall and NDM were the worst: produced fruit that almost all went bad. They're on my hit list now. The NDM will have a Pickering grafted on to its trunk when a friend has the time to do so. Haven't decided what to graft on to Cogshall - Providence is the top contender for now.
Your experience with and confidence in the Providence mango is interesting in light of its supposed vulnerability to MBBS and the general abandonment of that variety in this area. Obviously it's doing well for you, and you like it enough to want to topwork another tree to it. My tree hasn't produced yet, but I guess the best course of action is to wait and see if it produces healthy fruit.
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Here is my take on the weak season, the good cold front in Dec. set us up, warm January, then several cool mornings in at 52/58 in Feb and March. I think the Hot Jan. and the cool Feb. and March threw the trees out of sync. I grow orchids as a hobby(north of 400) and always keep an eye the winter temps.
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This year was the best and strangest in the last 5 years for my mangoes. Last winter seemed very mild. I wondered if lack of cold hours would adversely affect my lychee, but the small sapling produced 7 fruits compared to last year's one. The mangoes started early. I was eating a local (Criollo) variety from one of my tree in mid-May. Best tasting and juiciest they have ever been and the tree was producing new flowers at the same time. There was a lull in early June when I didn't get any ripe fruit then all the trees started producing outstanding quality fruit. Friends and neighbors have also commented on the outstanding year for mangoes in the area (Eastern side of Baja Sur). It has also been a long season with loads of fruit still on the trees. There was a little rain in the fall but the winter was dry although I irrigate my trees. Last year wasn't too good for me, but I've not noticed a biennial trend over other years.
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Whether mangoes "need" chill hours or not, sudden cool temps are associated with flowering. Certainly appears to be true here in FL. In areas that stay warm year round, dry spells and other triggers are involved in flowering.
In a warm but very dry winter you will understand what i'm saying, because you should get very good flowering and fruit set.
There are many ways to stress plants, including artificial ways like growth hormones and potassium nitrate. Thesw eill aslo help flowering. But you wouldn't say they are necessary for mangos to fruit.
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Chill hours??? ??? Mangos are tropical and don't need chill hours. Do you really think they would fruit in Myanmar and southern India, where they are native, if they needed chill hours?
There was a crazy bumper crop this year here in Kona and in Maui, zero chill hours also.
Chill hours? You got volcano emissions hours to worry about. But the next big toxic burp is 24 years away.
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Chill hours??? ??? Mangos are tropical and don't need chill hours. Do you really think they would fruit in Myanmar and southern India, where they are native, if they needed chill hours?
There was a crazy bumper crop this year here in Kona and in Maui, zero chill hours also.
Chill hours? You got volcano emissions hours to worry about. But the next big toxic burp is 24 years away.
Gas emissions from volcano also can stress plants. Unfortunately not a type of stress that makes them fruit, on the contrary. Good news is that there is almost zero emissions now, and probably for many years, maybe decades?, ahead.
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I got a fair amount of mangoes, but quite a few went bad during the ripening process. Got a lot of rain in early June, before the fruit were fully ripe, and that may have had something to do with it.
Angie, Fairchild, Pickering, Providence and Honey Kiss were good producers. Mahachanok was moderate. Mallika was poor. Cogshall and NDM were the worst: produced fruit that almost all went bad. They're on my hit list now. The NDM will have a Pickering grafted on to its trunk when a friend has the time to do so. Haven't decided what to graft on to Cogshall - Providence is the top contender for now.
Your experience with and confidence in the Providence mango is interesting in light of its supposed vulnerability to MBBS and the general abandonment of that variety in this area. Obviously it's doing well for you, and you like it enough to want to topwork another tree to it. My tree hasn't produced yet, but I guess the best course of action is to wait and see if it produces healthy fruit.
How old is your Providence? I planted mine in Jan. 2015, and it fruited for the first time (about 25 mangoes) in 2018, and again this year (around 40). The mangoes are large, but better than that, the taste is to my liking. A bit scruffy this year, with black spots on the skin, but taste was excellent. I'm no connoisseur; I like my Pickering, Providence, Angie, Fairchild and Honey Kiss. The MC isn't bad, but it's quite vigorous and so more work than I need to keep it at a reasonable size.
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Whether mangoes "need" chill hours or not, sudden cool temps are associated with flowering. Certainly appears to be true here in FL. In areas that stay warm year round, dry spells and other triggers are involved in flowering.
In a warm but very dry winter you will understand what i'm saying, because you should get very good flowering and fruit set.
There are many ways to stress plants, including artificial ways like growth hormones and potassium nitrate. Thesw eill aslo help flowering. But you wouldn't say they are necessary for mangos to fruit.
A cool but not too cool spell or a dry spell or both (even better) are the strongest natural bloom inducers for mango. It’s not accurate to refer to their native land and conclude dryness is any more or less relevant than a cool period. And we should also remember, different varieties respond very differently. Some flower without either chill hours or dry periods. Some varieties in Brazil, Hawaii and south Florida have never flowered in 30 years, even surrounded by other varieties that do.
Also, adaption to cooler climates is probably an overstatement. Selection, maybe. But adaption would take much longer.
Stick to your guns Simon. The science is well studied.
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Cool weather at the right time definitely helps trigger flowering, but lest not forget that many Florida mango varieties are grown in the tropics, where they do not get even one night below 65F and they can produce fruit without any problem.
some varieties require more stress than others to trigger flowering. water seems to be the biggest contributing factor in the DR, dry winters = more fruit, no cold involved.
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I've never said that cold temperatures can't stress mango into flowering. What i said is that cold temperatures are not absolutely necessary for fruiting. And if it was then there would be no mangoes at all in the tropics. Which would be rather funny, because that is where they originate. You will never find anywhere cold chill ratings for mangoes for that reason. Cold chill ratings are for temperate fruits only.
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I also had a poor year for harvesting mangoes but I can identify the cause for my area. In Brevard county when all of my trees had a mixture of flowers and small bb's/fruit set, we had a freak hail storm that knocked off the majority of flowers and fruit. Then to add on to this insult, two days later we had a wind squall that blew in our area with speeds in excess of 60 mph. It was strong enough to snap the top of a large mature oak tree on my property. Needless to say, just about all that was left of my future fruit was on the ground and I probably harvested less than 10% of what I have had in prior years. The squirrels also seemed to be more of a nuisance competing for what was left.
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Yes, it is true that several Florida varieties of mango fruit very well in northeastern Brazil, which is semi-arid. But it is not true when those same varieties are taken to northern Brazil, Amazonia, where the dry season is usually 3-6 weeks, and the annual low temperature is around 68-degrees F.
There are several, long-cultivated-in-the-Amazon-region polyembrionic varieties of mango, which produce heavily every year; however, of the dozen or so varieties introduced from Florida to the Amazon in the 1970's and since, only the Nam Doc Mai has fruited. The others went decades without even flowering. [Some apparently did eventually, flower. I am guessing that that occurred in years of extreme drought or lots of smoke. No fruits were reported.]
So I do speak of some mango varieties as being truly tropical, and of most mango varieties as being sub-tropical. [Definitions of "sub-tropical" are all over the place, per some, even including Washington, D.C. Per me, "Some freezes or frosts recorded, but not every year."]
I realize that drought-stress can be an alternative stimulus to flowering, but here in Florida, where we get considerable dry weather, including tree-wilting droughts in the middle of what is supposed to be rainy season--- and we don't get late summer blooms from that--- we in the trade, believe that the timing of the start of the next mango season is determined by the timing of the first several nights of weather in the fifties F.
Here in in the "coastal strip" in southeastern Florida, the first cool snap may occur in mid-October, in which case the very early varieties will have ripe fruits in late March or early April. If the first cool snap is in mid-December, the season will start near the end of May.
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I've never said that cold temperatures can't stress mango into flowering. What i said is that cold temperatures are not absolutely necessary for fruiting. And if it was then there would be no mangoes at all in the tropics. Which would be rather funny, because that is where they originate. You will never find anywhere cold chill ratings for mangoes for that reason. Cold chill ratings are for temperate fruits only.
Your comments are accurate. However to be fair to Simon we must note they they are also incomplete. Simon’s statement surmised as to why flowering didn’t occur and within the grower’s context, now underpinned by Har and other’s observations, it’s clear some varieties in some growing areas either rely on moderate chilling hours or have no or rare flowering. Simon didn’t say chilling period was absolutely necessary.
Chill.
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I've never said that cold temperatures can't stress mango into flowering. What i said is that cold temperatures are not absolutely necessary for fruiting. And if it was then there would be no mangoes at all in the tropics. Which would be rather funny, because that is where they originate. You will never find anywhere cold chill ratings for mangoes for that reason. Cold chill ratings are for temperate fruits only.
Your comments are accurate. However to be fair to Simon we must note they they are also incomplete. Simon’s statement surmised as to why flowering didn’t occur and within the grower’s context, now underpinned by Har and other’s observations, it’s clear some varieties in some growing areas either rely on moderate chilling hours or have no or rare flowering. Simon didn’t say chilling period was absolutely necessary.
Chill.
The problem is in the use of the term "chilling hours" instead of "stress". I don't see any scientific paper with ratings anywhere for what mango cultivars need chilling hours, and the amount of hours they need? If there is such literature, then please let me know.
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I've never said that cold temperatures can't stress mango into flowering. What i said is that cold temperatures are not absolutely necessary for fruiting. And if it was then there would be no mangoes at all in the tropics. Which would be rather funny, because that is where they originate. You will never find anywhere cold chill ratings for mangoes for that reason. Cold chill ratings are for temperate fruits only.
Your comments are accurate. However to be fair to Simon we must note they they are also incomplete. Simon’s statement surmised as to why flowering didn’t occur and within the grower’s context, now underpinned by Har and other’s observations, it’s clear some varieties in some growing areas either rely on moderate chilling hours or have no or rare flowering. Simon didn’t say chilling period was absolutely necessary.
Chill.
The problem is in the use of the term "chilling hours" instead of "stress". I don't see any scientific paper with ratings anywhere for what mango cultivars need chilling hours, and the amount of hours they need? If there is such literature, then please let me know.
I hear you man. It’s a good thing mango trees don’t await scientific literature to determine behavior.
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Haha, my brain isn’t what it used to be. I used the words “chilling hours” because I felt readers could relate to this term better because chilling hours is often used when discussing stone fruit and it’s need for a specific chilling period to set good fruit. I felt that most reader would understand what I was talking about.
I further explained saying “at the appropriate temperature for an appropriate amount of time” to let readers know that I did not have the exact data for Mangos.
Hopefully the growers that didn’t get enough chilling stress this year will get enough next year for a bountiful harvest.
Simon
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Dr. Jonathan Crane makes delivered a great presentation this summer that touched on mango flower induction.
(https://i.postimg.cc/67s3t8sp/Mango-Flower-Induction.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/67s3t8sp)
"This dormancy may be induced by cool temperatures (<~59oF) and/or
dry soil conditions.
• In subtropical areas temperatures play a major role and in tropical areas, drought
(dry period) plays a major role."
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Nice!
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Dr. Jonathan Crane makes delivered a great presentation this summer that touched on mango flower induction.
(https://i.postimg.cc/67s3t8sp/Mango-Flower-Induction.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/67s3t8sp)
"This dormancy may be induced by cool temperatures (<~59oF) and/or
dry soil conditions.
• In subtropical areas temperatures play a major role and in tropical areas, drought
(dry period) plays a major role."
No issue with anything Dr. Crane says. Notice he doesn't say mangoes need "chill hours"? He's only talking about stressing plants and says quite clearly that dry and/or cool temperatures can work.
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Ok, got it, different varieties, countries, etc, etc.
Now, some bulk-of-the-bell-shaped curve generalities please.
Mature tree in FL zone 9b near 9a fruited for first time last summer.
It is Jan 2020. Flowers on two branches as of three weeks ago. Two weeks of same pleasant weather passed without any more flowers. Because I do not know what is common flowering behavior, I was surprised by no more flowers.
How does flowering go usually?
(The recent very cold weather came later; flowers same.)
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Look for more branches to flower, now that they have accumulated more... stress.
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I looked and looked since then (Jan 23); no more flowers.
Fruits on those two branches.