Do mango have fungal issues in dry climates?

[fruitnut1944]

I'm going to grow mine in a warm low humidity greenhouse. But not many people have experience with that. Can anyone venture a guess about fungal issues in really dry climates. California is wet in winter, Florida basically all yr long. But how about a real desert where it doesn't rain much anytime of yr. Would that still have powdery mildew or other fungal issues on mango? I have seen PM on grapes and melons in really dry conditions. But usually diseases of the tree or fruit are wet weather issues.

[sapote]

A member lives in Palm Spring  -- Gary? -- had good LZ with many fruits, and so I think his dry climate trees don't have this issue or very little.

[fruitnut1944]

Thank you for your reply. That's good to know. Palm Springs is actually the most favorable area in US that I could think of. I can duplicate a Palm Springs winter pretty well and at minimal expense in my greenhouse.

[brian]

I have a mango in-ground in my greenhouse.  I've never seen powdery mildew and I do not apply any anti-fungals.  I occasionally have some minor leaf necrosis I can't quite explain, but overall my mango looks very healthy.  It is loaded with pea sized fruitlets right now, I hope they hold.  Last year the few fruits dropped at walnut size.

[spaugh]

i dont have much fungal issues here either.

[Oolie]

Most PM is species specific.

[fruitnut1944]

I have a mango in-ground in my greenhouse.  I've never seen powdery mildew and I do not apply any anti-fungals.  I occasionally have some minor leaf necrosis I can't quite explain, but overall my mango looks very healthy.  It is loaded with pea sized fruitlets right now, I hope they hold.  Last year the few fruits dropped at walnut size.

That looks very nice..!! I hope the fruit holds on. How warm do you keep your greenhouse in winter?

[fruitnut1944]

Thank you Spaugh and Oolie for your input. This is sounding hopeful.

[brian]

My heater is set to 55F.  I understand I could probably set it much lower but I am lucky to have cheap natural gas

[zands]

A low moisture greenhouse? I don't have any greenhouse to experiment with. But air conditioners remove moisture. Why not arrange to have small one blowing into your greenhouse as it source for fresh air. Some of the months.

[brian]

My greenhouse is much drier than I expected during the day time.  I assumed it was humid constantly because of how much condensation I see in mornings and evenings, but I just put a hygrometer in a few weeks ago and it reads <40% most of the time when it is sunny.  I am going to try creating a more humid section for the tropicals I have that require it. 

[Plantinyum]

I have a mango in-ground in my greenhouse.  I've never seen powdery mildew and I do not apply any anti-fungals.  I occasionally have some minor leaf necrosis I can't quite explain, but overall my mango looks very healthy.  It is loaded with pea sized fruitlets right now, I hope they hold.  Last year the few fruits dropped at walnut size.

lol thats awesome , do u do anything to heat the soil ??

[brian]

No, but the foundation is insulated around the perimeter of the down to 2ft below grade.  The soil never drops much below 50f even in the middle of winter.

[MisterPlantee]

I am in Canada however I have a couple lean to greenhouses that share recirculated air with our house during the Late Fall/Winter/Early Spring. The dehumidifier is set to 35-40% so that would probably count as being dry and doesn't drop below 55deg F in the coldest times, probably up to 100deg F in the spring before I swap the polycarbonate windows with screens..

I have never seen powdery mildew on the mango or any of my tropical fruit plants.

I have a 6' tall Mango in a pot and currently holding fruit about 2" in size.

[brian]

That's a fine looking tree!  Now I want to see somebody in the arctic circle showing off their mango

[fruitnut1944]

Thank you all for the inspiration. It sounds like I shouldn't have any trouble with mango diseases. I've had very few issues with pests of any kind in my greenhouse. The only thing I've sprayed for in many yrs is spider mites. I imagine they like mango foliage, they like most everything else.

[Mike T]

There are lots of mango tree, sugar apple, soursop sop and citrus fungal problems here due to humidity and rain. A bit further west where mangoes are grown in a low rainfall area there are very few fungal problems at all. Unless trees are staying wet for many days or weeks on end it all should be pretty good. At the moment I am concerned about fungal problems re-ermerging in some of my trees due to trees staying wet nearly all month and it being rainy for the last week almost non-stop (28 inches for the week).

[Oolie]

Thank you Spaugh and Oolie for your input. This is sounding hopeful.

You're welcome, your greenhouse is an inspiration!

The figs you ripen make Texas seem pretty appealing.

[Mark in Texas]

Thank you all for the inspiration. It sounds like I shouldn't have any trouble with mango diseases. I've had very few issues with pests of any kind in my greenhouse. The only thing I've sprayed for in many yrs is spider mites. I imagine they like mango foliage, they like most everything else.

PM is killed with temps above 90F.

I live north of Fredericksburg.   We have RH in the 20's in the summer and sometimes single digits if we get winds out of Mexico from the S.W.  I have very little if any issues with any kind of fungus except maybe at the time of bloom during humid weather.  I spray with Physan 35 or Magnabon CS2005. 

Pineapple pleasure



Pickering



My greenhouse thread:  https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=7511.msg96609#msg96609

Got any pics of your greenhouse?  Here's mine with a member last summer.  Winter storm, (ran out of fuel, got down to 21F) really set me back with most mangos firing off shoots under the mulch so I'll have to start over.  Pickering looks dead.  The only graft that made it was Juicy Peach.  Lost a dozen other varieties.

[Mark in Texas]

My heater is set to 55F.  I understand I could probably set it much lower but I am lucky to have cheap natural gas

My setpoint is and has been 34F for years.  Everything does fine but the pineapples.  They really don't like temps below 45F.

[fruitnut1944]

My heater is set to 37 when I'm getting chilling for stonefruit. That takes 45 days to get 900 hrs. Then I often heat to 10-15F warmer than outside. So ~42 mid January when chilling ends to 58 right now. For mango I'm going to try a greenhouse inside the greenhouse to keep it warmer from Oct to May. In summer it's low 90s as highs with lows in 60s. I haven't tried posting pictures here and don't have time to learn right now. Here's a recent thread on growingfruit:  https://growingfruit.org/t/why-a-greenhouse-might-be-good-for-growing-fruit/36180

My greenhouse is the best money I've ever spent: best fruit, least disease and pests, no freezes or hail in 15 yrs, and to top that off I'm selling 3-4x the greenhouse build cost in fig plants every year.

[Mark in Texas]

My heater is set to 37 when I'm getting chilling for stonefruit. That takes 45 days to get 900 hrs. Then I often heat to 10-15F warmer than outside. So ~42 mid January when chilling ends to 58 right now. For mango I'm going to try a greenhouse inside the greenhouse to keep it warmer from Oct to May. In summer it's low 90s as highs with lows in 60s. I haven't tried posting pictures here and don't have time to learn right now. Here's a recent thread on growingfruit:  https://growingfruit.org/t/why-a-greenhouse-might-be-good-for-growing-fruit/36180

My greenhouse is the best money I've ever spent: best fruit, least disease and pests, no freezes or hail in 15 yrs, and to top that off I'm selling 3-4x the greenhouse cost in fig plants every year.

Very nice house!  Fredericksburg area which includes Stonewall is the center of peach growing in Texas.  It's big business, pick-ur-own tourist trap.  Other pome fruits are also grown like plums.   My only interest is tropical fruits when it comes to expensive greenhouse real estate - annona, avocados, mango, citrus, pineapple, maters, etc.

I have a friend who is also one of the biggest (and oldest) peach growers around here, like 100 acres, 26 varieties - Jenschke.  For a while I raided some of his varieties for scions and put 30 grafts on a Harvester peach tree, apricot too.  I got some June Prince bareroot trees from him and based on my culinary experience asked Barrett what he thought of this "new" variety.  Said it was one of the best he has in the orchard.  I agree, never had a better peach.  It's trained to a single plane shape rather than a vase for ease of maintenance.   https://bestfredericksburgpeaches.com/our-peaches/



They bought my 2 miles of irrigation poly pipe and all my Xmas tree choose/cut equipment and supplies.  That's where the big bucks are - Xmas trees.

It's my understanding that Mennonites have big apple orchards and other stuff in and around the Chihuahua desert, or did until that horrible massacre of one Mennonite family in Mexico.

[Mark in Texas]

I see you use wet pads Sr. Alpine.  Because of our ultra high water TDS (salts) of the well water the maintenance is too much.  Been there with swamp coolers, what a POS they are.  I love the Aquafog fed by 2,800 gals. of  rainwater.  Compared to wet pads/fans, high pressure pumps/nozzles, it's basically maintenance free and super efficient.  It puts out a heavy fog that is driven about 25'.  Hangs at 10' with a slight 10 degree tilt up.

[fruitnut1944]

Do you have exhaust fans or just the fogger? I'm very happy with the wet wall. No heat stress ever and maintenance isn't much. I've thought about using rain water for the wet wall but we've only had 3 inches in 18 months. And one water tank costs more that the cooler pads which lasted 10 yrs.

I'll check out your greenhouse thread. I may put in another greenhouse at some point so all ideas are welcome.

[brian]

Mark, if you have scale issues with wet pads wouldn't you instead have scale issues on your actual plants with a fogger?  I have a fogging setup also and despite moderate-low TDS I still get some scale buildup on the leaves of the nearby trees. 

Sorry we derailed this thread from the original mango-PM question but I always love a good greenhouse discussion