Sweet Tart Mango Tree Possible Top Work Candidate.

[edzone9]

Hello Forum Members,

All my mango trees have been producing very well except this Sweet Tart mango tree, it’s been in the grown Approx 5 Years and have produced a hand full of fruit.

Is sweet tart known as a heavy producer ?

I will consider top Working this tree this season .

Thanks Ed

[mangokothiyan]

Don't give up on the tree. Sweet Tart is normally a reliable and heavy producer of top quality fruit. It is not known to be precocious, but five years is usually enough for the tree to produce consistently.

[Oolie]

I don't want to discourage you too much, but it seems that this is not an issue only you are experiencing.

https://www.tropicalacresfarms.com/product-page/sweet-tart

If you're looking for alternative choices with a similar flavor, ZINC, and CAC are two possible alternatives.

If you do decide to topwork, there are a few of us on the west coast looking for scions of Sweet tart, as it does seem to do well here.

[achetadomestica]

I have had such a different experience with sweet tart.
My tree won't grow. It has been in the ground for 5 years and
I get one small flush a year. But every year it flushes flowers and I
end up with 10 fruit. I have cut them off every year until this year
and I let it hold 5. I was wondering if it was a sweet tart? Several
people have told me how vigorous they grow. My tree is 4 foot tall and
barely 3 foot wide?

[savemejebus]

Anecdotal evidence, but my Sweet Tart has only been in ground 3 - 5 years (I used to be much better keeping track of this), is bearing for the first time, and is relatively loaded:

[edzone9]

Thanks everyone, will play i5 by ear, May Top Work 1/2 and leave the other 1/2 ST.

Ed

[Squam256]

They’re a waste of time in our warm climate imo. You will find anecdotal examples of them doing well (particularly when grown inland where the temperature gets cooler), but they’re much better suited for central Florida and California.

We’ve got 30 of them under cultivation and may begin top-working some this year.
If you want something that tastes like Sweet Tart And actually produces reliably, grow Cecilove.

Maybe someday we’ll get winters again in south Florida.

[mangokothiyan]

Is it just me that has a productive Sweet Tart tree in South Florida?

[Squam256]

Is it just me that has a productive Sweet Tart tree in South Florida?

I’m sure there are a few. We have a couple that have good crops. And If we were to survey all the sweet tart trees in south Florida I would guarantee you that the majority of them would have minor-to-no crops.

It’s particularly bad for those of us growing near the coast. Cecil Brumfield in Lantana has like 5 of them and *zero* fruit.

[zands]

#1-- When you top graft onto a lamer maybe yields remain disappointing?
#2-- Perhaps ST needs more mango juices production. So approach grafting a strong seedling onto a young ST will give it the boost it needs

Mango juices meaning all the hormones, minerals, carbohydrates flowing through the ST tree

[sunny]

I would kill the tree and buy a nice one made from connecting a rootstock to a perfect branch.

Here we buy large tree's (branches with a rootstock) which can be 2-3 meters tall (10-12 feet) and have a rootball from 1-2 litre which is half a gallon.

Those tree's have the perfect shape, nice spreading branches and come in any size.

this way you start with a new tree of 1-2-3 meter instead of a tiny grafted tree which will take many years to get to that size of 10 feet.

I just bought some green mango tree's like that and they look perfect, only have a very small rootball...but they are flushing now and grow well.

[edzone9]

They’re a waste of time in our warm climate imo. You will find anecdotal examples of them doing well (particularly when grown inland where the temperature gets cooler), but they’re much better suited for central Florida and California.

We’ve got 30 of them under cultivation and may begin top-working some this year.
If you want something that tastes like Sweet Tart And actually produces reliably, grow Cecilove.

Maybe someday we’ll get winters again in south Florida.

Alex is Sugarloaf productive?
Thanks Ed

[Tropheus76]

Mine has been in the ground about 5 years. Froze back and lost all branches and the upper trunk during a freak winter 3 years ago and it now about 8 feet tall. I have about a dozen well formed and coloring up mangos on it which for me is a huge harvest. It also have some newer fruitlets from a second bloom but I am not counting on those at this time. I would say give it some time, provided next winter isn't a doozy then I expect a much bigger harvest of mangos and for them to steadily increase. I did find sweet tarts to be the absolute fastest growing of my mangoes. For example, I have a lemon zest about 15 feet away planted at the same time, same winter issues and its only half the size with maybe half a dozen promising fruit on it.

[Squam256]

They’re a waste of time in our warm climate imo. You will find anecdotal examples of them doing well (particularly when grown inland where the temperature gets cooler), but they’re much better suited for central Florida and California.

We’ve got 30 of them under cultivation and may begin top-working some this year.
If you want something that tastes like Sweet Tart And actually produces reliably, grow Cecilove.

Maybe someday we’ll get winters again in south Florida.

Alex is Sugarloaf productive?
Thanks Ed

It appears to be.

[shot]

We get more chill so sweet tart fruiting beyond capacity last year and this year ,the first two years of fruiting though because of heavy pruning prior.

[dwfl]

Sweet tart has indeed been going bonkers the past couple years here.

[Cookie Monster]

This is interesting. I have 2 sweet tarts, both in ground for > 5 years. One produces small crops every year, the other has been producing heavy crops, regularly snapping branches. Is it possible that the tree is sensitive to rootstock influence?

On a related note, one of my neighbors has an Edward that produces semi-heavy crops nearly every year. Yet, the branch that I grafted from his tree (onto a keitt) has produced very little. (To be fair it's the first year that it's flowered for me.) I'm a little bummed, cause I actually gave my neighbor the tree. We thought about digging it out of the ground when he sold, err, lost the house to foreclosure (he offered it to us), but it was too big.

[palmcity]

I have had such a different experience with sweet tart.
My tree won't grow. It has been in the ground for 5 years and
I get one small flush a year. But every year it flushes flowers and I
end up with 10 fruit. I have cut them off every year until this year
and I let it hold 5. I was wondering if it was a sweet tart? Several
people have told me how vigorous they grow. My tree is 4 foot tall and
barely 3 foot wide?

I've had a few trees that did not want to grow. PPK x 2 trees, and 1 grafted sweet tart. No other ppk trees but I have other grafted sweet tarts that grow fine.

In your picture I see a few barren spots in the yard/field. In my yard I have moles and I suspect they formed cavities under some of my smaller trees stunting their growth. Just a guess for your tree also. You might want to try stomping down the dirt around the trunk just in case air pockets are drying the roots too much.

[edzone9]

No moles , that’s my string trimmer clearing the grass around my trees ..

Ed

[Cookie Monster]

hehe! Thanks for the suggestion! Ima add this to my list of budwood buy when I get ready to graft.

They’re a waste of time in our warm climate imo. You will find anecdotal examples of them doing well (particularly when grown inland where the temperature gets cooler), but they’re much better suited for central Florida and California.

We’ve got 30 of them under cultivation and may begin top-working some this year.
If you want something that tastes like Sweet Tart And actually produces reliably, grow Cecilove.

Maybe someday we’ll get winters again in south Florida.

[achetadomestica]

[/quote]
I've had a few trees that did not want to grow. PPK x 2 trees, and 1 grafted sweet tart. No other ppk trees but I have other grafted sweet tarts that grow fine.

In your picture I see a few barren spots in the yard/field. In my yard I have moles and I suspect they formed cavities under some of my smaller trees stunting their growth. Just a guess for your tree also. You might want to try stomping down the dirt around the trunk just in case air pockets are drying the roots too much.
[/quote]

I'll try anything to help it grow. I do see moles in my yard but I have several 
other mangos in the same proximity and they grow fine?

[FloridaGreenMan]

I have a 4 big 4 year old Sweet Tart that looks amazing but ZERO fruit...sharpening my ax as we speak.....

[edzone9]

I have a 4 big 4 year old Sweet Tart that looks amazing but ZERO fruit...sharpening my ax as we speak.....

Top working time 👍

[simon_grow]

Looking at your tree from a physiological standpoint, it appears healthy and very vertical in structure which is what we expect from Sweet Tart. Based on observation and some research in regards to stimulation of blooms in Mangos and other fruiting crops, you may want to consider trying to tie or weigh down some of the branches so that they are more horizontal in growth as opposed to vertical.

This should help increase the concentration of florigenic hormones but you will still need the cold stimulus and the previous flush prior to expected flowering needs to be mature.

Decreasing leaf Nitrogen levels well before expected blooms should also help give you the best chance of increasing productivity.

If you had tip pruned earlier, it would give you a shorter bushier tree with increased potential bloom sites and the weight of the exponentially increased growth sites would weigh down the branches, naturally giving you more growth that is horizontal instead of vertical.

Simon

[edzone9]

Thank you Simon!

May Top Work To M4 & E4.

Ed