Right, but the question above asks "So what are the options now if you want LATE varieties that that aren't MBBS susceptible?". I think the answer is none, as is the answer to the more general question of "which varieties of mango, regardless of season, aren't MBBS susceptible." Perhaps early season cultivars will be more resistant, due to the fact that fruit are harvested before the onslaught of rain and humidity?
Keitt has been the most susceptible of my trees. I first started seeing the disease about 5 or 6 years ago on my Keitt, and it did build to the point where I was literally losing over 90% of the crop, months before harvest time. A the time, I had no idea what it was. Har (who was taking care of my property at the time) was also stumped.
I hard pruned the Keitt a couple of years ago. This year, it has some MBBS again, but it looks like I might be the 1 in 10 or less fruit loss range (vs 9 in 10 as before). Not sure if it will build up to the 90% level again. We'll see how this plays out.
Does Walter still have his Keitt grove?
-- Update --
My Keitt is now trending towards 40% crop loss. It went from squeaky clean fruit about a month ago to 10% or so loss about 2 weeks ago, to a burgeoning infection on its way to ruin the entire crop again. So hard pruning is apparently not a solution. I'm not sure which climatic condition lead to this, but it seems to be heavily exacerbated by rain, heat, and humidity. Looks like I'm going to finally complete my total topwork of the keitt...
One of my Lemon Zest trees has somewhere around 15 - 20% of fruit affected. The other two trees have been fine.
Is there such a thing as a mango that's not MBBS susceptible? I've been finding it on quite a few cultivars. To my surprise, I even found what looks to be an MBBS lesion on one of my orange sherbet mangos.
I think MBBS is just another disease / pest / pathogen that growers in Florida will have to deal with. And discovering that a previously disease resistant tree now is susceptible to a new pathogen is just par for the course here in South Florida.
Any mango can get it much like any mango can get anthracnose, but the degree of susceptibility can vary considerably by cultivar. This has already been established overseas where the disease has existed for a while now in areas of Australia and South Africa. Susceptibility to the rots, which are separate pathogens, seems to coincide with MBBS susceptibility.
There’s a major difference between losing 1 in 10 or 20 fruit to it and losing a majority of your crop, which many people in Palm Beach and surrounding area are experiencing at this point now that the pathogens have have several years to accumulate and build up.
Topic: Is MBBS a problem for mangoes on the Florida West Coast yet? (Read 2488 times)