Creative Shading ideas for mangosteen and other garcinias etc.

[Kona fruit farm]

Hi guys.  I've read many times that these trees like "partial shade for a few years then full sun after that"... It seems like a difficult situation to come by.   In my property I don't really have any areas that fit this description.  They are either shady almost all the time or sunny.  Anyone built little shade houses for their trees that can be moved in a couple years once the tree grows up and isn't so prone to sun damage?  Or something along those lines?? I've got  a few different varieties of garcinias (most still in pots) that I haven't planted  or have recently planted and I'm worried about them getting beat up by the sun. 

Seems kinda high maintenance to go to these lengths for a fruit tree.  But them again a mangosteen is so delicious Im willing to do whatever it takes to help it grow and bear fruit!!

Thanks!

[DurianLover]

It's really simple and I don't see any easier way. Plant couple tall variety of banana on the sunny side, few feet from desired mangosteen spot.

[Hollywood]

I would plant a couple Moringas about a year in advance before transplanting. Moringa trees grow superfast and provide a nice filtered shade. Also, it would probably be easier to chop down and remove after several years then banana patches. Any artificial setup is going to have problems in strong winds.

Moringa is also easy to prune back with your bare hands and you can use the prunings as green manure.

[gunnar429]

I would plant a couple Moringas about a year in advance before transplanting. Moringa trees grow superfast and provide a nice filtered shade. Also, it would probably be easier to chop down and remove after several years then banana patches. Any artificial setup is going to have problems in strong winds.

Moringa is also easy to prune back with your bare hands and you can use the prunings as green manure.

Hollywood said it all for me.  Sounds like a winner!  Plus, moringa is easy to propagate from cuttings so you could have more in the future for little cost.

[LivingParadise]

I use areca palms. They're easy to keep cutting back to exactly the amount of light you want, don't need much maintenance to stay alive, and then at some point the mangosteen outgrows them. If you're worried about sharing the space and nutrients once the mangosteen is mature, you can simply cut them back further or cut them down completely. I find it a lot cheaper and more attractive as a solution than building some kind of shade housing in the yard. They also provide some good wind protection in storms for the young tree.

[Doglips]

I believe I've seen photos in Asia where they use big wicker type baskets.  Banana sounds easy cheaper and an alternate source for eats until the tree is up to snuff.

[DurianLover]

I use areca palms. They're easy to keep cutting back to exactly the amount of light you want, don't need much maintenance to stay alive, and then at some point the mangosteen outgrows them. If you're worried about sharing the space and nutrients once the mangosteen is mature, you can simply cut them back further or cut them down completely. I find it a lot cheaper and more attractive as a solution than building some kind of shade housing in the yard. They also provide some good wind protection in storms for the young tree.

I'm so sorry to go off topic, but after much googling still cannot find growth rate of areca palm. It just says fast or moderate. How many feet per year we are talking about here.

[Kona fruit farm]

I think planting the banana trees sounds like a great idea.  This way I get more fruit and also they are super easy to remove once the tree grows up.   Not sure why I didn't think of that myself...That's why I needed your guys help!   

Thanks for all the replies

Also while I have some experts chiming in, which trees absolutely need shade vs not really needing shade: I have;
Regular purple mangosteen (pretty sure this does)
Button mangosteen (Cherapu)
Achachairu
Lemon drop mangosteen
Lucs mexican mangosteen
Am I mising Any other must have garcinias on this list??  Haha.

Let me know if any of these DONT need shade. 

Thanks again.

[gunnar429]

pretty sure achacha can grow in full sun, and will also fruit if shaded.

[Kona fruit farm]

Well here is an update...  i have 3 button mangosteen out in my field and i was able to transplant a bunch of banana trees to shade them.  (also they are shaded about 2 hours a day by a large ohia tree)  so that worked out great.  see pics.  lots of shade now. 





My other mangosteen tree is in my yard planted in a gravel area... so i wasn't able to plant any palms or banana trees around it so i had to improvise and i did in fact build a shade house..  haha  it was a little bit of work but it was fun and i had scrap wood laying around so i said what the heck..  i think it turned out awesome.  Legs are all 4x4 posts so they are heavy enough to stand up to the wind i hope... then put 50% shade cloth on the top.

[fruitlovers]

Kona fruit farm, the way it's done over here to temporarily shade trees is to use hog wire fencing, make a circular cage, and line it with shade cloth. When you come over i can show you one. Very easy to make, lasts a very long time, and you can take it off easy when the time comes (plant reaches over top of cage). The cages are held to the soil with rebar. If you punch in 3 pieces of 4 foot tall rebar to the inside of the cage then you can easily take it off when needing to weed or fertilize, and then easily slide it back on.
The bananas for shade, i tried that and didn't work out well over the long run. What happens is that angle of sun will change during different seasons and then plants get scorched. Or you pick the bunch of bananas and the plant dies and the mangosteens get scorched.
After trying the bananas shading method on 25 mangosteens i planted i had to resort to a different method. By then they were too big for hogwire cages. So i hammered in 4 pieces of rebar and used 20 foot long pieces of pvc held by the rebar to form teepes. Then i put shade cloth over the top of them.
All the garcinias appreciate filtered sunlight when small and will grow a lot faster that way also. In your location in Kona, where you get a lot less cloud cover than here, it's even more important to shade those garcinias so the leaves don't get fried.

[Mike T]

Why not just do the standard 4 ft posts with shadecloth  around them as Oscar describes.That way is used for everything and a partially opened top allows the plant to grow up to the top and out as it sun hardens.

[vipinrl]

In Kerala, we use Coconut leaves for shading young plants.
An additional benefit of using Coconut leaves is that this method helps in simplified hardening of younger plants as the leaves gradually degrade.

[fruitlovers]

In Kerala, we use Coconut leaves for shading young plants.
An additional benefit of using Coconut leaves is that this method helps in simplified hardening of younger plants as the leaves gradually degrade.

These are very good methods when you don't have access to wire and shade cloth and you have a lot of willing hands to help you. But when you are farming or gardening by yourself it's very difficult to maintain. A wire cage in our climate will last very many years, and can be reused for other plants as necessary. The coconut fronds break down very rapidly in our rainy hot climate and need to be maintained and replaced often.

[vipinrl]

In Kerala, we use Coconut leaves for shading young plants.
An additional benefit of using Coconut leaves is that this method helps in simplified hardening of younger plants as the leaves gradually degrade.

These are very good methods when you don't have access to wire and shade cloth and you have a lot of willing hands to help you. But when you are farming or gardening by yourself it's very difficult to maintain. A wire cage in our climate will last very many years, and can be reused for other plants as necessary. The coconut fronds break down very rapidly in our rainy hot climate and need to be maintained and replaced often.

Dear Oscar,
I am gardening by myself, no other hands for helping, and use this method for guarding seedlings from the harsh summer sun, 38^oC ( 100^oF), till monsoon.
When the monsoon arrives, I remove these shades. By the next summer, the seedlings will be hardened enough to survive harsh environments .

[fruitlovers]

In Kerala, we use Coconut leaves for shading young plants.
An additional benefit of using Coconut leaves is that this method helps in simplified hardening of younger plants as the leaves gradually degrade.

These are very good methods when you don't have access to wire and shade cloth and you have a lot of willing hands to help you. But when you are farming or gardening by yourself it's very difficult to maintain. A wire cage in our climate will last very many years, and can be reused for other plants as necessary. The coconut fronds break down very rapidly in our rainy hot climate and need to be maintained and replaced often.

Dear Oscar,
I am gardening by myself, no other hands for helping, and use this method for guarding seedlings from the harsh summer sun, 38^oC ( 100^oF), till monsoon.
When the monsoon arrives, I remove these shades. By the next summer, the seedlings will be hardened enough to survive harsh environments .

How many hectares are you maintaining? How many other jobs do you do besides farming?
Our climate is very different: monsoon all year long. So you can imagine how fast those coconut fronds would break down?

[vipinrl]

In Kerala, we use Coconut leaves for shading young plants.
An additional benefit of using Coconut leaves is that this method helps in simplified hardening of younger plants as the leaves gradually degrade.

These are very good methods when you don't have access to wire and shade cloth and you have a lot of willing hands to help you. But when you are farming or gardening by yourself it's very difficult to maintain. A wire cage in our climate will last very many years, and can be reused for other plants as necessary. The coconut fronds break down very rapidly in our rainy hot climate and need to be maintained and replaced often.

Dear Oscar,
I am gardening by myself, no other hands for helping, and use this method for guarding seedlings from the harsh summer sun, 38^oC ( 100^oF), till monsoon.
When the monsoon arrives, I remove these shades. By the next summer, the seedlings will be hardened enough to survive harsh environments .

How many hectares are you maintaining? How many other jobs do you do besides farming?
Our climate is very different: monsoon all year long. So you can imagine how fast those coconut fronds would break down?

Yes, it is true that this setup will easily break down. Also we should make sure that the bindings are strong enough to withstand winds.
I just wanted to tell that we are following this method in Kerala where we have distinct summer and monsoon and plenty of Coconut palms!
I can't advice on the best method to be used in the US or any other country; only wanted to share the method we use.
There may be countries, like Sri Lanka, with climate and conditions similar to us.

I believe this forum is for sharing (ideas and experiences) also, besides advices and solutions!

[Finca La Isla]

What has worked well for me is to plant 3 living fence posts, preferably glyrcidium. Around the designated planting site a couple of months before planting.  Living posts are easily pruned to control shade quantity which we adjust according to the season.  The posts are nitrogen fixers and are easy to remove when you want.
You'll be sorry if a banana falls on a mangosteen.
Peter

[DurianLover]

Vipin, we never even come close to 38 C in wet part of SL

What has worked well for me is to plant 3 living fence posts, preferably glyrcidium. Around the designated planting site a couple of months before planting.  Living posts are easily pruned to control shade quantity which we adjust according to the season.  The posts are nitrogen fixers and are easy to remove when you want.
You'll be sorry if a banana falls on a mangosteen.
Peter

Sorry, but i disagree on glyrcidium removal easiness. Still wacking some trees after 2.5 years. It's beneficial when needed, but then becomes tree version of weed.

[vipinrl]

Vipin, we never even come close to 38 C in wet part of SL

Dear Rytis,
38C is the maximum recorded temperature here.
Usually, the summer time max. will be around 36C .

[gunnar429]

link from echo regarding living fences....fyi
http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/members.echocommunity.org/resource/collection/E66CDFDB-0A0D-4DDE-8AB1-74D9D8C3EDD4/Living_Fence--Its_Role_on_the_Small_Farm.pdf

[micah]

Plants love plant friends...companions that will mine the soil, retain moisture, windbreak, and hide from bugs.
We use the pigeon pea as the shade maker...it can be easily topped and mulched...eventually it dies after a year or two and the n fixing plant leaves a great root trail for the desired fruit tree to take way down into earth.
Some shorter Hawaiian bananas are perfect.  Not as vigorous as namwa or apple banana.  Dwarf maoli, popu ulu, dwarf iholena, seem to die back after a year or three..they benefit from being moved around...having a reason to maintain the future tree..like a rack of fat banana and some pigeon peas for gunndutti rice.
When not too lazy...we put shaded tree cage..then around perimeter of that we line with vetiveer grass ( especially on sloping ground),poke some pigeon peas around that..maybe on sunrise side only, papaya,ti leaf, some sweet potato vines and a short banana plant... If any stray animals (horses here) break into orchard for a day...the first plants they eat is ti leaf and papaya then banana..most times they will leave the fruit tree alone. three months or so we can move shade cage cause plant around are big enough.Most people who've grown around here forever look and think...what the hell is this clump of plant for....but eventually that desired tree pops out of the mini jungle..happier than some lone rare fruit tree.
Does anyone else use vetiveer grass?

[Finca La Isla]

We use vetiver grass on contour for erosion control, but not really for shade although it can grow pretty tall.

I have heard complaints before about glyrcidium being hard to get rid of but have never experienced the problem and my farm has hundreds, if not more than a thousand, glyrcidium posts.  We find that with good quality maintenance the well chopped, low stump gives up. 

I also like the idea of the moringa but for me it is not as quick and easy to plant.

Pigeon pea doesn't last long enough to continue shading mangosteen until it reaches above six feet.

Peter

[jcaldeira]

I often make a coconut frond tent similar to what Vipinrl described.  My neighbors do the same.   It works great when transplanting young trees into the field, and lasts several months which is usually all that's needed.



For shade that's needed for several years, I plant a few cassava around it, or plant under a wild tree I won't mind losing later.

[Mike T]

It can be 35/36c maximums here for weeks at  and it gets to about 40c very rarely.In the last 2 weeks the monsoon arrived and maxes dropped 5c.While I could take the shelters away the trees need a few summers of protection and I will just open the shadecloth at the top. Whenever I just use palm leaves the mangosteen,durian or longkong just burn if they don't get replaced quickly.Live plants for shading nearly always create drama.

[luc]

I planted 2 more 1 meter mangosteen in the ground a few months before the rainy season lightly covered with shade cloth 50 % , this was removed as soon as the rains started , they did not really suffer at all and are doing great in full sun now . I believe the sooner they get full sun the better . They are really tough . Another plant was half burned by a forrest fire and is back to normal now .

[fruitlovers]

The added bonus of using wire cages with shadecloth is that on top of providing shade they are also very good wind protection and bug protection. Here we have very big problem with rose beetles, and the wire cages keep them out. This is most common method used on commercial orchards. You see it a lot especially on mangosteen and lychee orchards.

[Kona fruit farm]

Oscar this is a great idea.  I will build the wire cages.  I've already got the shade cloth and the hog fence.   Plus I was worried about pigs digging into my trees.   So this actually solves 3 problems.