The Tropical Fruit Forum

florida natural farming[/url] (fnf) doesn't water any of his trees, are his mango roots deeper than the roots of mangoes that are regularly watered?   

fnf is on a mission to plant bananas next to all his mangoes.  the bananas trade, via fungi, their surplus potassium for the mangoes' surplus resources.  potassium provides greater tolerance to cold stress among other things.  an interesting tidbit from the fig article is that figs have more potassium per ounce than bananas.   

Fnf either doesn't know what he's talking about or has deceived himself.
The soil type in Erics area are "Flatwoods" types, the most common type in the state, a Spodosol called Myakka fine sand, or if the sand is deeper it is called Immokalee soil. They are of very low fertility and poorly drained. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to use a post hole digger and see what he has. As you dig down it will be some grade of sand on top and eventually you will find the Spodic layer which will be very hard dark and nearly impermeable, full of organics. The spodic layer got that way by organics washing down till they cemented the existing sand. Usually the soil above that layer can hold a few inches of water. We often get 3-4 inches of water a week, sometimes in less than a day. At that point, the soil is fully saturated and may stay that way for a week, maybe more. Try digging down in the rainy season and when you reach water your hole will start caving in with sand. Sometimes it will be dry just until you reach the spodic layer, but when you permeate that you will see water coming upward from below. The water will be stinky and anaerobic, full of sulfur gas.

It's also common for the soil at the spodic layer and even below to remain saturated, and anearobic, through much of the rainy season. Tap roots of almost all fruiting trees cannot survive in anaerobic conditions. Anybody who tells you that mango or almost any other fruit trees have deep tap roots in spodosols is not living in reality.

This fellow goes into a backhoe cut then shows and explains very well how it works. He also explains how seemingly good looking  trees perish in Florida dry season when the shallow rooted trees haven't enough to keep them going.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlZwb4dGbGM

As for bananas trading potassium, I'd enjoy seeing some research documenting that. But I do know that banana accumulates potassium, even in the pseudostems. Since banana stems are disposable annually at harvest, that biomass production contains the potassium and can be used as chop/drop around the fruiting trees. Ive done that continuously but eventually trees crowd out bananas in most cases. A quicker source of cheap potassium is wood ash of any type, even washings from biochar production is good.

New shadehouse and worm bins are looking great!
Just wondering about the metal lids and how hot it can get in there. It looked like all the worms were at the bottom when you poked around in there and the temp on top was 88.
And then you manually scoop it onto a little trailer to move around the farm?

The covers are vinyl soffitting, and after winter I leave them propped open. That was two years ago. I use a fork and front end loader to move the castings to trees, sometimes a large wheelbarrow. 

Quote from: agroventuresperu on March 17, 2024, 10:08:53 PM

Quote from: pineislander on October 30, 2023, 06:25:33 AM

but just the fact that I use irrigation and mulch made me part of the horrible ones....

What's wrong with mulch? I never heard anyone in the organic/regenerative space criticize the use of mulch. In my Environmental Horticulture AS program, the instructors drove the point home about all the benefits of mulch.

pineisander...why are you not mentioning that you use synthetic fertilizers? As far as I remember, Eric didn't like the fact that you were doing 100% clearing of the land before planting "permaculture" in its place, not that you used mulch. I understand you had lots of "bad" trees like melaleuca but 100% bulldozing of land and then creating a "permaculture" forest in its place is something I would consider quite questionable if you want to be teaching permaculture to others and be the example of it. Would be nice if everyone named things by their names, not tried to make things look like they're something they're not. then no one would argue.

There were significant differences in our sites. Eric started with a 50 year old mowed horse pasture and scattered mature trees. I started with a complete suite of the local invasive trees, Brazil Pepper, Melaleuca, Ear Acacia, wild grape and Smilax. So clearing that was called for, you aren't going to grow trees inside there. I have a video of it, and if you check the channel you can see how the clearing progressed. All the biomass possible was recycled back on site except stumps were burned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25BPpPIpZo

Eric was against mulch, until he started using it. He said that mulch didn't let other plants grow but that's only if you don't plant in the mulch and just leave splace as a "mulch desert". I see that he's now using imported hay animal bedding from his midget cows as mulch piles around his trees. It humorous to watch.

As for irrigation, Eric got screwed when he bought a place with a great artesian well that free flows. The problem with that turned out to be such poor quality water it poisons the soil with salts. At first he claimed he could let the well flow and flood the property for frost protection. But he found that irrigation wasnt possible with the poor quality artesian water. After that anybody who irrigates to grow trees became a sinner.

Yes, I use every rational form of fertility management. I've used commercial slow release, made massive compost and biochar, made my own drums of fish emulsion from fish house scraps, spread about 6,000 cubic yards of mulch, planted legumes from all the continents, chop and drop. My latest has been vermiculture I built a system to generate 5 cubic yard batches of worm castings twice a year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlaqdLUHvvU

Im generally eclectic in my approaches, seldom dogmatic, and always open to experimentation. Most years I've broken even on profitability despite a fairly high capital startup cost during establishment.
 

rabbits love jackfruit and will girdle them relentlessly. They are especially active in spring.

One thing to consider when assessing the question of a possible "3 crops per year" is that mango fruit development from flower to ripeness takes somewhere between 100-150 days. If you do the math based on a 365 day year you will see the problem. That would mean that flower initiation would have to come back very quickly after fruit pick, which is unlikely in most cases.

In the above discussion of Lemon Zest holding on the tree at August 31st, counting back 125 days obtains a likely fruit set date of April 28th, maybe a bit late flowering but not out of season at all..

In the case of the mango variety "Fralan(aka Falan)" as mentioned in this image, that variety is usually picked immature for eating green. It's possible that the early stripping of fruit tends to allow a quicker reflowering than most other varieties. My two Falan trees also tend to have significant fruit splitting if allowed to mature too far so essentially the tree self-limits maturity  by aborting fruit.
https://postimg.cc/YG3j2gyq
 

Found the first mango of the season "Fralan" .That tree makes more than one crop for me so not to unusual.For me those trees are to vigorous so I'm top working.

John I also had a few Fralan in Dec that split and dropped. But my first and largest fruit holding are Nam doc Mai pic taken today.

So, Eric I searched your youtube channel (since you weren't doing it) and suffered through 30 minutes of monologue in your video titled:

Our Late Season Mangoes Produce 3 Crops Per Year - August 31, 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTdcFKoFGro

Here is the transcript:

the mangoes are starting to pop up it's really truly amazing but here's our lemon zest mango and
10:49
lemon zest really isn't one of my favorite mangoes but
10:57
this one this particular tree
11:03
this particular tree fruited three times so in once one year
11:09
so in this in all this this summer so you get a first crop that looks like this and then it'll send out another
11:16
flush and then I got a second crop and then I got a third crop and the third crop had four mangoes on it so we still
11:23
have mangoes of lemon zest

Here is what you called "a third crop". Two mangos, maybe it was four a few weeks earlier.



Lemon Zest is typically a later season variety July-August. Eric may find that two late fruits hanging on in August constitutes "a third crop" but most will see he is stretching the truth beyond reasonable.

Eric, these were my comments which you called "angry" and "hateful".

And you believed him when he claims that he is getting 3 crops of mangos per year?
Did he say what seasons he gets these 3 crops per year?
Does he get a spring, summer and fall crop, cleasrly he's not picking the winter crop!
Or just 3 staggered blooms which all ripen in summer?

I assure you what he should have said is that some trees have staggered blooms with some earlier and some later. There are also a few varieties like Choc Anon and Nam Doc Mai which can partially bloom out of season but probably not a full crop.
This is pretty common on some varieties, and not so remarkable. No honest person would claim to be getting "three crops in a year" when it's really just a staggered bloom across a couple of months. He is counting on people's gullibility and his ability to delete comments to carry on that boast.

Eric your own video shows that, even with me not seeing the tree in question, I was 100% correct, not angry or hateful, just stating the facts which turned out very true. Two or 4 late blooming fruit hanging on doesn't constitute a "crop".

Maybe some people can be convinced that you get 3 mango crops per year in Florida but most of us know better. I'm still waiting on the photos.

his mango trees would be happier if he irrigated?  maybe, but it's incredibly cool that several of his mango trees produce three crops in a year without any irrigation. 

And you believed him when he claims that he is getting 3 crops of mangos per year?
Did he say what seasons he gets these 3 crops per year?
Does he get a spring, summer and fall crop, cleasrly he's not picking the winter crop!
Or just 3 staggered blooms which all ripen in summer?

I assure you what he should have said is that some trees have staggered blooms with some earlier and some later. There are also a few varieties like Choc Anon and Nam Doc Mai which can partially bloom out of season but probably not a full crop.
This is pretty common on some varieties, and not so remarkable. No honest person would claim to be getting "three crops in a year" when it's really just a staggered bloom across a couple of months. He is counting on people's gullibility and his ability to delete comments to carry on that boast.

However, to be fair he should upload the photos of these unicorns with exif data showing the dates taken. I'll eat crow.

Lastly, its common for mango beyond 5 years or so in Florida to not need more irrigation. It does help move them along at first and this was pointed out to FNF by an experienced grower who commented on the one year old mango at Frog Valley which died from frost a few years ago. Getting them up to maturity offers some advantages against frost. Eric just scoffed at a grower with over 40 years of experience.

the two tropical fruit guys i watch religiously are flying fox fruit and florida natural farming.  fnf, on the other hand, doesn't have quite the same charm, but i love that he's always reading relevant scholarly papers.  and his garden is the closest to my dream garden.

I used to follow fnf but haven't visited in a long time. I don't think he gets around much because he hasn't compared his mango trees to those of others. Mango is about the easiest fruit to grow in Florida but his trees look highly stressed with very small twisted leaves showing deficiencies. Many of the leaves are growing in strange horizontal angles. He is getting some flowers but admits to poor fruit set.  Anyone growing mango will quickly see something is wrong, but he seems blinded to it. Ive tried before to make productive comments but he is recalcitrant and shuns people just like he left this forum.

To see what I mean have a look at his latest video and compare to your own mango trees. I wish he would be open to discussion but that never happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w49z5du3f4

fnf has his own abrasive and very boastful attitude. Nobody forced him away. Generally he wasn't receptive to anything or anyone who made suggestions, even folks with decades more local experience, it's his way or the highway...... The same happens at his youtube channel, blocks and deletes anything which doesn't agree 100%. You can see that he doesn't get along with neighbors, has few friends, which should tell most of what you need to know. I grow similarly to him, but just the fact that I use irrigation and mulch made me part of the horrible ones.... You are dealing with an extremist mindset, huge chip on each shoulder type of guy.

He describes use of bangsite for flower induction. However, it is carbide and doesnt produce ethylene gas as he says, it produces acetylene which does the same thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIkV7XRSv1U