If only a box of Lemon Zest's would make it to AU, then you would see the light that Florida mangos are the world's best mangos!
What do you think of Tommy Atkins mango? Is Lemon Zest better?
Yes, LZ is a lot better. TA is an older commercial cultivar that was not selected primarily for flavor. The Florida mangos that can be found around most of the world are not the newer high quality cultivars that have been released in the past few years. It may be a few more years before you find them readily available in Thailand.
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Well i really like Osteen which is as old as TA i guess. It also transports/stores well and that's the most important reason for commercial growers, without transport no mango's. The same goes for the R2E2 i guess. I bought one in Bangkok imported from Aussie but we didn't even eat more then half of it
I have no idea about what is the best mango, yes ndm is great but i can't eat much of them because they are soo sweat. I like to change variety's and also spread the harvest time.
That whole discussion about what is the best mango and from where is not my cup of tea. Also climate/soil/water/pests have much influence.
But if a greenhorn mangogrower starts reading on internet he will find the most info coming from the USA. I also made that mistake and have been asking for weeks for icecream or pina colada/coconut cream mangotree's here in Bangkok
Also growing advice on american websites is mostly for Florida alkaline soils, i didn't realise that for a long time.
It won't take years before the Zills mango's are here, it might go faster then one could think. If the Thai want something then it has to happen, one way or the other. Now Taiwanese mango's are hot but that can change anytime. The tree's (grafted of course) cost half price now of what it was last year. Sure this year there will be new mangovariety's from another country for sale.
But if i was mr Zills i would go for the big market and that is in Asia. There are billions of people living in the Asian tropics and they will get them anyway, wether he likes it or not. He better starts his own farms here in Asia or another person will do it.
It suprises me that only Taiwanese seem to develop many new variety's. They are only hybrids though between famous variety's. Here they can sell huge quantity's of backyard mangotree's, we don't need good transport properties, people can all grow them at home.
Well i hope mr Zills keeps that in mind, now he is probably selecting for high yield and good transportproperty's but i would like to see new variety's who are good disease resistant and have the best flavour. Also the green-eating mango's should not be forgotten, there is a huge market for them as well. I have not tasted brahm kai meu yet (which is great according to american websites) but if it was so great then why we never see them here? There is a great greeneating mango but the tree i knew of it has died, i 'm searching for that variety and am pretty sure many more americans will like it. It's the perfect low calorie snack for at night on the couch.
New jackfruit variety's arrive all the time, we don't care for latex because we have streetvendors who peel them for us, it's a profession here to peel them. The same for durians. I even never had a whole jack in my hands and eaten loads of it, the same goes for my wife and loads of Thai.
The problem with selling inferior fruit is that the whole country/continent gets a bad international name. Here they sell too early picked avocado's, we also just bought a kg of those and that can ruin the whole market. I ;m tired of buying Thai avocado's because a third of them is picked too early. That doesn't happen with imported cado's and it's a shame.
Also i don't understand how Americans can say that Osteen is a bad mango, it is great and even good for supermarkets thousands of km away. Maybe they don't grow well in Florida but that doesn't mean it's a bad mango.
Anyway, i hope Amber will be as promised. I decided to promote the papaya holland, eating bland papaya's should be history. Also papaya's are very healthy against spreadable diseases (i just learned that, so maybe even governments should promote them). Forummember Afriadoni just wrote that they are called papaya Bangkok in his part of Indonesia, i don't know if it's the same papaya holland but i guess so.
Thumbs up for Mike T that he is doing his best to promote the Amber Jack (and other fruit). I hope i can show the world what a good papaya is, not that i developed them or so but i just think it's worth to grow them. And nope i didn't taste many papaya's in my life so maybe there are even better ones around, if so then let me know.
