Turpentine Mango seeds

[DuncanYoung]

I am looking for a safe and quick way of getting the seed out of those very hard turpentine husks.  I can get most other varieties out easily, but these turpentine's end up making me hurt myself 

[Tropicalgrower89]

I am looking for a safe and quick way of getting the seed out of those very hard turpentine husks.  I can get most other varieties out easily, but these turpentine's end up making me hurt myself 

What I do is carefully scrape the fibers off the husk with a knife while rinsing the seed. Then I stick the tip of the knife into the tip and twist to crack it open even more. Be careful!

[DuncanYoung]

Thanks, I will try rinsing better, just find the turp husk very hard.  Like shucking and oyster.  Maybe I should use one of those wire mesh gloves because I usually end up impaling myself.

[kh0110]

Scrape what you can so the seed doesn't slip to much and use meat scissors/shears instead of a knife to cut open the side just enough so you could pry open the husk.

[murahilin]

The method that I've used successfully on a small batch of seeds is to put them into a bag to rot for a few days. Once they get mushy you spray them down with a hose and all of the flesh washes right off the seed husk. If you try to wash the flesh of a non rotten mango, nothing happens. Once you wash the flesh off, let the husks dry in the sun for a few hours. They will then be much easier to open.


For a larger scale, I've seen a nursery put thousands of the turpentine into 25g+ containers and let them rot and then put the fruit into a small cement mixer to wash off the flesh. Then after the flesh is off, dry them in the sun and then open them.

If you've done all of that already and you are asking specifically about the tools used to open to endocarp, I just use my hand pruners.

[DuncanYoung]

Thanks for the suggestions!  I will try the let rot method and use shears.  I have been trying to open while too fresh.

[fruitlovers]

If you are trying to just get the seed out there is no need to remove all the pulp off the seed. Just leave the seed out in sun to thoroughly dry remaining pulp. Once it's dry enough and won't slip out of your hand you can use a heavy duty pruning shear to cut the tip off the seed hull. Once you've cut a hole in you can pry the two sides open. The Chapman Field experimental station i saw used a special tool to pry the 2 sides open. It was a converted version of needle nose pliers. You insert the pliers into the hole and then the pressure of pliers opening pries the 2 sides of the hull open. With this tool they could open them very fast and do large quantities in short time.

[DuncanYoung]

Great tips Oscar, thanks.  Will dry these out before trying to open.

[JeffDM]

I've had good luck by scraping as much flesh as possible of the seed husk with a butter knife under running water and then wrapping the seed husk in a paper towel for about a day.  When dry, it's much easier to crack open.

[Cookie Monster]

Butter knife works well for me too. It's like a clamshell. One side of the husk is easier to open than the other. Drying the seeds (husks) out makes the job much easier. The turpentine seeds have little or no airspace between the seed and the husk, so using pruners / sheers is a challenge (for me at least) to do without cutting the seed.

The taproot on mango seeds can grow pretty quickly. If possible, a community 7 gallon pot or one of those stuewe treepots allows the taproot to grow without turning into a mangled mass at bottom of container.

[DuncanYoung]

Thanks Jeff  I will try the butter/oyster knife after drying out.  Maybe then I can figure out which is the easier side to open.  No problem with most other cultivars, just these turps.  I like the idea of a community container.  Do you gently dig up each rootstock when ready to graft, or keep all graftlings together in the same container?

Jack

[bsbullie]

Butter knife works well for me too. It's like a clamshell. One side of the husk is easier to open than the other. Drying the seeds (husks) out makes the job much easier. The turpentine seeds have little or no airspace between the seed and the husk, so using pruners / sheers is a challenge (for me at least) to do without cutting the seed.

The taproot on mango seeds can grow pretty quickly. If possible, a community 7 gallon pot or one of those stuewe treepots allows the taproot to grow without turning into a mangled mass at bottom of container.

Funny you mention a mango's taproot...Richard Wilson and Gary Zill have had "discussions" about whether a mango has a "true" taproot.  In moving some large in ground trees, the facts were proven (whether this is/was the norm or not I don't know)...I am not gonna say who thought they had a true tap root and who thought they didn't and best of all, who was proven right based on THIS INSTANCE only.

I will say one thing, I have seen many large mangoes in 100-500 gallon pots being moved and not seen any evidence of a tap root coming through the bottom of the pot...   

[zands]

Funny you mention a mango's taproot...Richard Wilson and Gary Zill have had "discussions" about whether a mango has a "true" taproot.  In moving some large in ground trees, the facts were proven (whether this is/was the norm or not I don't know)...I am not gonna say who thought they had a true tap root and who thought they didn't and best of all, who was proven right based on THIS INSTANCE only.

Did you see a taproot on these trees? Large in ground mango trees that were dug out and moved?