I didn't know it was even possible to grow green-leafed lychees in the redlands without heavy foliar micronutrient application. Don from Going Bananas showed me the difference between lychees given regular foliar treatment and those without. The latter group looked horrible.

You need to find tree trimmers in the area who will dump their mulch on your property. It's generally a cost savings to them, as they don't need to pay dump fees.

There is another guy on the forum here, FruitFreak, who is doing pretty much the same thing on a 4 acre plot. You might want to see how he hooked up with the trimmers.

You could. As long as your soil drains well enough. Not 100% ideal, but it would work. But daily watering sounds a bit extreme. Here, they only let us water the lawn twice a week, which is sufficient.

If you need something that's water loving, plant jaboticaba. I have daily drip irrigation on those buggers.

So basically, I can't plant mango trees on my lawn and have sprinkler heads spraying on my trees daily. Am I correct? I have a long walkway in the back of my yard. I was planning to line it with mango trees. I guess I will be planting it with sapodillas then.

Quote from: zands on March 08, 2018, 09:18:00 PM

Quote from: palmcity on March 08, 2018, 02:56:07 PM

Any other opinions and any others that water at the tree trunk like Zands does during the dry periods and any bad effects noted or not???

Let me correct that to watering mango trees with my garden hose at ground level. As opposed to having your mango trees planted on a lawn like many members do. Then having your lawn sprinkler system sending sprinkler water into the mango leaves and panicles and developing fruit. Then you might promote rot and fungus.

So do not train your garden hose only where the tree trunk meets the ground. But within the four- five foot diameter around the tree trunk. None of my trees are mulched more than a five ft diameter so this is where my roots and root absorbing action is. So I think. My philosophy - The feeder roots are on their own and should go scrounging for their food and water, which I know that many do not advocate.

Right. I guess my hope is that this turns out to be like laurel wilt, where rather than toppling all (dooryard) avocado trees, it simply takes out a few here and there. The fact that one of my keitt trees has had BBS + "the rot" for years and the other is seemingly immune (despite being 25 feet away trunk to trunk) gives me hope.

Typically when a new disease is discovered, the first reaction is to overreact to the projected scope of the issue. I'm still not 100% sold on the idea of citrus being impossible to grow here. It is indeed averse to our high ph soil and has a number of diseases and insect pests, but I think the main reason we don't see them in dooryard situations is because the state came out with chainsaws to destroy them all. I'm back to growing citrus again myself, and it seems that with regular fertilizer application, they can do fairly well.

At any rate, I do appreciate all of your valuable advice here. Keep us informed with any new developments in this area.

Quote

I find it slightly odd that Gary has decided to abandon the LZ when he grafts and sells notoriously disease prone trees such as Julie and East Indian

Those are driven by entrenched demand from West Indians and can even perform well in certain areas (Julie does well along the coast here for instance).outside of some internet circles like this one,  Lemon Zest lacks that heavily ingrained recognition and demand: its small potatoes by comparison. Interestingly enough Julie, and virtually all of its descendants, appears to be resistant to both MBBS and rot.

MBBS and rot are huge concerns to those of us involved with mangos because they present the ability to wipe out entire crops of certain cultivars including many common existing ones, even in areas where anthracnose is largely a non-issue. An accumulation of disease problems can set mangos back tremendously much in the way it did for citrus ( which had/has problems independent of greening). For years anthracnose was largely the biggest limiting disease factor for mango, but now we have rot and bacterial spot on top of more aggressive strains of scab and anthracnose, along with the existence of mango malformation and strange things like “Pink disease”. And Seca hasn’t even made it here yet.

These rot and bacterial diseases are definitely not just problems for commercial growers....they actually started out in backyards. People in Manalapan and Hypoluxo, where we suspect the MBBS got introduced and has “built up” the most now watch their Kents and Keitts get consumed annually by this stuff. I’ve seen it, and have customers in other nearby areas who have shown me their rotting fruit too. These are folks with minimal numbers of backyard trees. And for bacterial spot, aside from wind/rain, the most common way the pathogen spreads is via infected nursery stock. Part of why Gary Zill is rightfully concerned about it.

I’m definitely not 100% sold on Orange Sherbert either but there (apparently) exists more promise there from the disease perspective. As far as LZ’s other noted problems, your typical backyard grower is unlikely to be even spraying sulfur (or copper) and highly unlikely to be applying bags of gypsum to correct their calcium deficiency should they have one ( and are probably just as likely to be creating one with over-applications of nitrogen). As I’ve frequently been asked what “not to plant” given the challenges associated with growing mangos, Lemon Zest goes on the list for them.

Curious. I haven't seen that in the trees down here in this part of broward. Granted, there aren't many planted out, but I know of one in Margate which was gifted to a friend of Walters well before LZ was released. It's been a productive and disease resistant tree for many years. PM is a minor issue here, and yes, this cultivar is highly sensitive to sulfur.

Internal breakdown on LZ is only an issue if not given enough calcium, and in this regard, it's middle of the pack compared to most other cultivars. Fortunately, lack of calcium is not a problem for most of Broward :-). OS sets fruit a lot better (dozens of bb's per panicle), but it's way more prone to jelly seed, and per my experience is MORE vigorous than even LZ.

Walter will cut just about anything down. He did cut down his orange essence tree several years ago (and numerous others as well :-). And the last I spoke with him, he was on the verge of axing the OS too :-). Memory is escaping me, but I vaguely recall him wanting to chop Fruit Punch as well. He's a bit of an oddball.

The biggest drawback to LZ (here at least) is lack of precocity and need for chill to flower. So, it does require some patience. I do think that dooryard trees are under far less disease pressure than those grown in an commercial orchard scenario.

I find it slightly odd that Gary has decided to abandon the LZ when he grafts and sells notoriously disease prone trees such as Julie and East Indian. But, alas, those foolish dooryard growers aren't typically concerned with reaping commercial-level crops; they look to flavor as a primary concern :-).

Most people attending or listening to these talks aren’t going to have enough space for 2 Trees of one variety on top of an existing collection of numerous others. The majority are going to plant a couple Mangos at best, many only one.

LZ’s major and fatal pitfall  at this point is it’s extreme susceptibility to MBBS, but it’s hardly it’s only drawback. It’s highly prone to powdery mildew as well (and is coincidentally sensitive to sulfur, to whatever degree that matters in someone’s PM control program), has a very vigorous growth habit, and flowers poorly (particularly as a younger tree). It also tends to suffer from excessive abscission issues and the fruit’s flesh  can be prone to internal breakdown.  Outliers notwithstanding,These observations are based not only on my own experiences growing about 20 LZ trees, but also field notes from other growers in multiple regions.

Thus It’s probably a bad choice particularly for backyard growers with few trees AND commercial growers that can’t afford “black holes”. I suppose for people collecting numerous varieties, having one around may not matter much in the long run. But if you’re the typical backyarder and depending on it for your fruit year-after-year, it’s just not a wise choice in the era of MBBS, particularly with so many other excellent cultivars now available.

We lost almost all our LZ crop last year to disease, and that was with a spray routine that most regular people growing them wouldn’t  come close to following . It’s bad enough that Gary Zill won’t even graft it anymore, and Walter cut his down. We may ultimately topwork our dozen or so remaining trees unless we can recover a sizable enough percentage of the crop to justify keeping them around.

I don't think it would cause rot, unless you happen to be on muck or marl. However, the feeder roots do extend out quite a ways past the drip canopy on a mature tree. For a smaller, recently planted tree, the roots are more likely to be concentrated around the trunk (where they were previously confined to a container), and hence, watering by the trunk would be effective in this particular scenario.

Quote from: zands on March 06, 2018, 10:18:42 AM

Watering right at the base of the mango tree will not make it disease prone in such dry conditions

Unfortunately, I do not have but a 2 inch diameter shallow well as a homeowner and it is limited on volume of water for house and occasional irrigation. Thus I usually use the old rubber/vinyl water hose and pull it from tree to tree if I believe moisture is needed. I also use 3 way connectors to connect more than one water hose to slowly drip/water multiple trees at once and over night.

Yesterday I replaced the pressure switch on the small well pump as the constant on/off cycles over time wore it out pretty quick this year. So, as you see I am limited and cannot spare water to feed the worms and complete a circle water pattern around the canopy on the ground. I just try to survive the dry spells and save the trees and a few mangos if a really bad dry year. No rain reached my trees with this past weeks cool front... Maybe.... this Sunday at least per forecasts...

So, I am considering placing my small available amount of water closer to the tree trunk as you (Zands) have done to help make it through these periods (previously I would place it a few feet away from the trunk).

Any other opinions and any others that water at the tree trunk like Zands does during the dry periods and any bad effects noted or not???

Not so. It's true that mulch can be manipulated via either sulfur to retard decay (mulch breaks down way too fast in this area -- leads to quick return of weeds) or leafy green tree trimmer mulch to accelerate it (on the first few applications, to build up soil bacteria). But, sadly, compost a) has nutrients in the wrong ratio for optimal fruiting and b) locks up some vital nutrients, notably copper and others -- both are well documented.

Will trees survive and produce in pure mulch? Certainly. Will they thrive and achieve max production and fruit quality? Nope. I learned that the hard way.

Deep soaking lasts a week max. We're flood zone X (high ground).

One could probably get away with just adding an abundance of your tree mulch if you added some sort of organic carbon nitrogen source (green weeds, grass clippings) periodically (when mulch is brown) for the bacteria to feed on and create humus.  Plus one or two deep soakings during a dry season if needed to keep soil moist.

Right. Not your typical dooryard orchard fungicide routine. Your typical backyard grower will nary invest in southern ag liquid copper fungicide -- due largely to the effort involved in spraying.

I had only been using Nordox 75 on the keitt, which helped (I could get a partial harvest vs total crop loss). I ended up cutting the keitt back severely; this is the first time in 2 years that it's fruiting again, so we'll see.

However, I did still get very minor BBS on a few trees with the below regimen. I do use a very light spray. Four gallons of mix (at recommended rate) covers 32 mango trees with the mister.

What's odd, though, is that the other keitts haven't manifested symptoms, even those on neighboring properties (one about 150 feet away) that get zero treatment.

The nice thing about the above products is that they are all either OMRI or Reduced Risk.

Quote from: Cookie Monster on March 07, 2018, 05:10:08 PM

A rotation of Pristine, Abound, Nordox Copper / Zinc (30/30), Switch, and Nordox Coppper 75 (not in that order) every 2 weeks.

Quote from: behlgarden on March 07, 2018, 04:26:16 PM

Hi Jeff,

what fungicide regime you are employing?

How long have you been using the Pristine and have you sprayed the Keitt with the Botrysphaerial rot with it?

That and the Abound may be what’s keeping the rot under control on your property. Most backyard growers aren’t going to invest in Strobilurins fortunately. Of course now that I’ve said this I’m sure a bunch of people reading are going to go drop $700

Last I checked, Excalibur's wholesale prices were nearly double that of the other nurseries .

500 trees? Get a Florida nursery licence so you can buy wholesale from nurseries like Pine Island and Excalibur. This licence is free and straightforward and easy to get. Your need is legit because as your farm develops you will have costumers asking to buy fruit trees from you. Legit also beacuse for 500 trees the large nurseries want your business so want to sell you to you wholesale...This nursery license makes this all go more smoothly.
Warning! Be sure to keep the Florida tax collectors happy by filing quarterly reports. They get angry if they don't hear from you even if all you can report some quarters is zero sales due to you planting all trees you buy wholesale on your fruit farm.

The first year (or two?) it bore, production was pathetic. But production has been quite strong for at least 3 years. The increase in production did coincide with starting a fungicide spraying routine, so it's possible that the two events are correlated.

I think it's more vigorous than glenn.

Quote from: Cookie Monster on March 07, 2018, 10:42:08 AM

I think it's been closer to 5 years at this point. I cut it back every year.

Quote from: mangokothiyan on March 06, 2018, 08:29:04 PM

Quote from: Future on March 06, 2018, 06:40:33 PM

Quote from: mangokothiyan on March 04, 2018, 10:14:39 PM

A question for the experts and for those who have seen the mother tree:

A technical footnote: This isn't a Zill bred mango.  The mother tree was under threat from a new road and saved via budwood.  Possible but I doubt anyone here has seen the mother tree.

Jeff has it grafted onto one of his trees, a Glenn if I remember right.  He has had it for at least 3 years.

Jeff, has it been productive the last two years? And in terms of vigor, would you put it in the Glenn category?

Bend it straight to form the new leader and stake it.

I don't have cotton candy or peach cobbler, but the other four would be in this order (most vigorous at top):

Lemon Zest - Upright and vigorous
Sweet Tart - Upright and semi-vigorous.
Carrie - Wide and dense. A fairly vigorous grower.
Mahachanok - Reasonably tame. Seems to have a sparse growth habit.

I'm planning a mango grove with multiple trees of several varieties and need to know the relative growth habits between them. I'm trying to determine which may be more or less vigorous or would need more or less space.
These will be grown in full sun conditions so if you have experience with these please let me know from smallest to largest.

Carrie
Mahachanok
Sweet Tart
Lemon Zest
Cotton Candy
Peach Cobbler