I appreciate the video links,  I find it very interesting what Campbell is attempting to do.   I do see a few discrepancies in his comments, maybe I heard him wrong,  he mentions that trees are planted at about 10 ft apart. and in one part of the video says he will increase the amount of trees per half acre,  later he says he might have to pull some out.   

It will be interesting to see if he is able to keep plants dwarfed solely by pushing production.   having so many trees so close together,  with little circulation seems like an invitation for fungal problems down the line.   and although I always support the idea of keeping the garden industrial chemical free, and love the idea of trying to be sustainable as possible,   its seems like this will be very labor intensive,  pruning 250 trees, and doing almost all other labor manually.   I do respect his experience, and learned a few things in these videos, also gave me some ideas of my own.

I am not too clear on the so called proprietary varieties he intends to patent,  are these  non-mentioned varieties or the ones he mentioned in the video?  could they be the new hybrids mentioned by Noris in another thread?

Haden is like the father of the Florida mangoes,   so making a hybrid with Casturi and Indica cv. Haden,  probably a good start.

as for cold hardiness,  if only we could cross Mango with Sumac ( not the poisonous one )  and get some kind of Interesting fruit.  after all you it is of the same  Anacardiaceae and has a "fruit" that a "lemonade" is made from.

Sindhri mango is the most common Pakistani variety for export.  from pictures I have seen they look a bit like Ataulfos, but Sindhri seems much larger,  of course they do export other varieties , that are yellow,  so who knows.

I agree with Rob,  "Honey Mango" just seems like marketing.   

I had a Nam Doc Mai, that seemed pretty decent green. 

Grafted kesar http://bfy.tw/CXba

Haha that is so cool

I am looking to purchase a grafted Kesar tree, anyone with info please reply.
thank you

You could try the buy sell section of the forum, there are some nurseries, that some I believe ship.


In other news, my friend with the Kesar farm, had a major loss.  a 40ft container full of Kesar's was shipped to NY market.  and was rejected and sent back, after discovery that the refrigerating unit failed in transit, all mangoes arrived in the US, black.  these were not even allowed to be destroyed in the US.and were sent back. 

As for Kesar fruit, I have had a few, and they were delicious as always,  despite the heavy rains this year, they did not get washed out like some other varieties, or suffer from internal breakdown, like all the Haden I have come across.   the most amazing story is the experimental station, that was planted in 2015,  some trees are over 10 ft tall, and loaded with Mangoes.   I shot some video,  in 2015 and have some new clips I will be editing soon,  I have never seen trees grow so fast in just 2 years.  i'll post this in its own thread later.   anyway I do like the consistency in quality of the Kesar from year to year.  and the fact that a lot of water does not seem to phase them much,  at one part of the experimental station,  a water pipe broke and some Kesar trees are in standing water.   note we use the "Banilejo" as root stock here,  so this might be a factor also.

Ponds are usually at the bottom of slopped land , act as a water catchment. and are part of most systems, many plants grow along ponds, plus we must remember the ducks down here is where your water loving plants herbs etc, will grow, for example Lotus ,  both seeds and roots are used.  and leaves and flowers are also used in teas,   Blue lotus has some "medicinal" uses smoked.   plus frogs love the pads.  its just one of many water loving plants.

Swales are used to prevent erosion, capture water, this flows underground to feed the pond,  trees as wind brakes, which could be NFT trees also things like vetiver grass etc to keep swales intact are used.  Comfrey is also used,  just make sure to get none spreading types of these.   Vetiver and Comfrey have very deep roots, and once established you will have them forever,  they bring up minerals and nutrients from deep in the soil,  Comfrey is very medicinal as well

Comfrey
https://www.greenharvest.com.au/Plants/Information/Comfrey.html

Vetiver
http://greenharvest.com.au/Plants/Information/Vetiver.html

these are the none seeding types you would want.

Swales and contours, is probably one of the most important things one can do to prepare uneven land. its all about the water.
http://green-change.com/2011/09/05/swales-for-water-harvesting/

It would take pages and pages of dialog to get into every facet.  but some key points and tips.  if you are to work this yourself,  you must keep the size of the project at a manageable size.

The whole idea behind permaculture, is to get maximum results with minimum labor, in the most sustainable manner possible,  working with nature instead of against it.

its best to plan this thinking of loops,   for your cash products.   lets says you want to raise pigs,   what plants do they eat?  for example palm seeds are loved by them in the DR,  what if you used palms that also have seeds that humans can consume maybe peach palm Acai? , or oil can be extracted? what do the palms need?  pig poop can be fed into a bio digester, the methane used to cook with, and the biodigester makes excellent fertilizer.  the idea is to make this "loop" as efficient as possible, with elements that support one another.

As for aguaponics,  I feel this can be energy intensive,  it is not that passive and maintenance free.  let say you have  a large tank, with Tilapia
and you are using this water to cycle back up to water/nourish plants.  you have to get it perfectly balanced, too many plants, and you will not have enough "food" for them from the tank water, fish will still need to be fed, what will this cost, can you grow sufficient plants enough to sustain them?  ammonia, and pH among other things need to be monitored and regulated.  here you will need power to pump water 24/7 and fish for market need a freezer.  unless you can find someone to buy them right out of the tank.

personally I like the food Forrest system, plant many plants together, with many trees that support others, let nature do the rest, main labor input is to get it established, speed up the process by coppicing the "service" trees.  eventually having a "forrest" that will sustain itself, and you just go in and harvest, many fruits, nuts, and even lumber and medicinal plants etc.

Animals are integral to a permaculture system, chickens Ducks etc would be my first choice, which reminds me of something Geoff Lawton said, if you have a problem with snails,  snails are not your problem,  it is not having ducks that is your problem.

A lot of emphasis is put on NFT trees, ( Nitrogen fixers ) but the error is believing that this nitrogen will be available to other plants directly in the ground,  does not work that way,  NFT can grow on their own without most fertilizers, but it is the green manure they produce ( biomass ) that will benefit your other plants.  so do not rule out non NFT trees,  Moringa, Neem, Inga, Tamarind, and so on.  multipurpose trees,

“Every Time I Eat Vegetables It Makes Me Think Of You” – Ramones
“Don’t Eat Stuff Off the Sidewalk” – The Cramps
"Me, The Mango Picker" - Carlo Mombelli
A Garden In The Rain - Perry Como

Ok just kidding around.   good luck on your Pickering and Venus.

I think the assumption (or word spread) that CC was patented for its commercial qualities but I don't believe that to be the case.  In fact,  its just the opposite.   It has a soft texture, ripens quickly and has a short shelf life (its sugar content causes it to want to become iverripe and ferment quite quickly).

Ok that makes sense from what I have read over the years on the forum, thanks Rob for that confirmation.


regarding the original question by OP
There are many different mangoes grown all over the world commercially,  I mean even Edward is grown commercially.   but to be a profitable venture in Florida,  the 1st thing you need to know is your market,  and what varieties ( superior than the common fare ) That will grow well in this location, and hold up in shipping.

Regarding NDM#4  from what I have read,  it has less susceptibility to splitting,  from specimens I have seen here in Florida during my visit, almost all that I have seen had black specks on them, the only ones that looked clean were a couple I purchased green..  ( 3 different sources ) They were all extremely sweet.   one think NDM has going for it,  there seems to be some buzz around this mango among Vegans,  which is a potential target market.

Another variety one may consider is Mallika.  the fruit I had were pretty clean, but the taste was amazing, I have had them before but, the ones I tried from Truly Tropical,  were the best mangoes I have had this year.  and these mangoes love to be picked green, making them a good candidate for commercial use.

This topic seems to be right up my ally.     One must ask yourself what is your market? will it be sales to local farmers markets or will it be commercial exports to supermarkets? the later is much more complicated as I will try to address below.

Florida no longer has a significant commercial mango industry. When it did conditions were a bit different than now. For example, Keitt was considered productive and relatively disease resistant. I had a Keitt in my yard then, and it was great for shipping, because it held well when mature but not ripe. But apparently there are increased disease pressures on mango production in Florida now, and Keitt is susceptible to these.  Also, warmer wetter winters* may affect which cultivars will fruit consistently.   Varieties that do well commercially in other locations, e.g. Mexico, will not necessarily be well suited for humid Florida conditions.

This is correct,  Kiett is the fastest growing and one of the most popular commercial varieties, but in Mexico and in the Dominican Republic,  it is grown in more arid regions. where rainfall is lower,  this is one of the reasons experimental stations are being setup in 5 locations on the island, to determine which variety does better under different conditions.

Also one major factor you must consider with commercial operations,   you do NOT want extended harvest from trees,   labor = cost.   in commercial production farmers use potassium nitrate to induce flowering, this is done to synchronize all the trees,  harvest is usually done in 3 parts,   1st harvest is usually picked and sold locally,  2nd ( main harvest ) is when extra workers are hired to pick fruit, and go through the cleaning, sorting, and packing process.  finally 3rd harvest, local street vendors, are allowed access, they clean the trees of whatever is left on them.  each phase of harvest is just days from one another, maybe a week.

It is just not practical economically to have weeks upon weeks of harvest,  you want everything picked as close as possible, and have fruit that are at the same level of development.    I'll explain in an example,  if you pick fruits on the fruit are not close in maturity, you will have fruit that arrives at its destination, past ripe,  others picked too soon and do not ripen well.  Also supermarkets want spotless clean fruit.  please take note that in Florida, synchronizing flowering by potassium nitrate is not effective.

I do not want to sound all negative, I just want to bring up the challenges of commercial farming of mangoes in Florida.  something that can be managed personally ( your own labor ) and sold to local farmers markets, restaurants etc seems more plausible in my opinion.  if you have to pay workers weeks on end,  your profits will soon fly out the window.  just my opinion.

So what would I recommend?   You must have a fruit that can be picked mature green, and have long shelf life and be of good quality when it ripens on the counter. it must not bruise easily.  and fruit should be fairly resistant to disease, or look clean.   frankly there is not many options here.   but Kesar,  ( Jumbo Kesar ) would be my first choice to consider.   productive, good shelf / shipping life, good quality,  ripens nice if picked mature green,  con: not the most colorful fruit.   

Under the recommendations from Rob.  I purchased an Edgar from him about a year and a half ago,  as soon as I have a few grafted trees I will be donating to the local Mango board in the DR.  so they can evaluate this in years to come.  will it be a new great commercial variety?  only time will tell for sure.  reports by people that have the tree locally is your best source of information for now.

Kiett is not a bad fruit, commercially it is the bomb, where it grows well. like the Kesar, it is not a colorful mango, but has all the traits that most commercial farmers desire.  if you can find a way to grow them clean in Florida,  that would be a good late season option.   understand you will be competing for the same market as cheap Mexican imports with the same variety.  yes locally grown will be better quality, but will customers pay more?   this is why  the DR mango board is looking to find another good variety, that the country can be identified with.   Mexico has the Ataulfo, and Keitt.  Haiti has the Madam Francine, which has been a hit for them,  2% of the US market is that Haitien mango, and has been well received by the consumers,  yes it has fiber,  but it taste great. and people have no problem spending $2 for a madam Francine, over an 88c Tommy Atkins, or Keitt at Walmart.

Like I said, it all depends on what your target market will be. 


Jumbo Kesar
Nam Doc Mai ( bruise easily but picked green is best has good market potential for restaurants )
Keitt ( if grown clean, best commercial  late variety )

Edgar?   still waiting on confirmation, fingers crossed.

I've watched every single one of the Truly Tropical Videos on Mangos and they are all excellent. Extremely informative and I love how she breaks down the pros and cons. I especially like how she lists whether the mango is Mono or a Polyembryonic.

In this video, I believe Gary mentioned that the Pettigrew or its seed came from a collection from the west coast?

Simon

Yes I eagerly look to see if Chris has uploaded a new mango variety, even gives advice on when to know when to pick the fruit, and love the picker-cam.