Inducing Mango Flowering: Calcium Nitrate vs. Potassium Nitrate

[Easy]

Hello friends! I just received my calcium nitrate in the mail, and was wondering whether anyone had experience using it (or potassium nitrate) as a flower inducer.  My questions: 1) which of the two works better (advantages/disadvantages)?  2) how do you use it (how much nitrate per how much water, how often, when)?  3) it is often recommended to use it with APSA-80; what does this do for it?  4) what have your results with this method been?  Thanks in advance,
Easy

[Squam256]

Your profile says Plantation, FL. If you are applying it there, it does not work at this latitude to actually induce flowering. Even in the tropics where it’s been shown to work for that purpose, it doesn’t work well on certain cultivars and it’s used in conjunction with PGRs like paclobutrazol to time growth flushes and Bud initiation.

You’ll just be pumping your trees with nitrogen, which you don’t need Calcium nitrate for. There could be some benefit from the calcium, but that could be supplied without the N.

APSA-80 is just a wetting agent that helps the foliage absorb the product.

[Easy]

Thanks for the info, Squam.  Why won't it work at my latitude?

[Squam256]

Thanks for the info, Squam.  Why won't it work at my latitude?

It’s not fully understood but has been trialed on a number of occasions. My understanding is that calcium nitrate and KN03 don’t work for initiating bloom in the northern parts of Mexico either though:

A reference to it here on KN03 but it pertains to CaNO3 as well:

Results concerning the effects of KN03 treatments on flower promotion and fruiting have not been consistent in India (Pal et ai., 1979, cited by Fierro & Ulloa, 1991) and Australia (Winston & Wright, 1986), or even negative in Florida as reported by Davenport (1987)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02571862.2005.10634676

[Sam]

I have a grafted mango tree in Trinidad that's more than 5 years old and about 7 feet tall that has not given me any fruit yet and needless to say I'm losing patience (sharpening my axe!!) so I was searching on the Forum for any chemical means I could try and came across this thread.

Has anyone here successfully used chemicals like Calcium Nitrate to induce flowering in mango?

[Finca La Isla]

I personally wouldn’t do this but what about using potassium sulfate. Doesn’t that or some other form of potassium induce flowering in mangoes?
Peter

[MisterPlantee]

I have read up on studies/articles re: Potassium Nitrate and mango flower induction on the web and I have tried it on my mango plan. It is interesting to hear about how the latitude is a factor, never heard it mentioned in the articles but then again from what I gather I don't think the mechanism as to how the chemicals induce flowers is well understood, it just seems to work.

I have a 7 x 7' grafted mango in a pot which is about 6 years old I think. In the greenhouse I sprayed it last year and it flowered. This year, I think it got confused and started a few panicles of flowers and then started opening leaves instead.. I sprayed it recently and it seems what is opening now are all flowers again.

So not 100% but "seems" to work for me. Worst case if you have a mature tree is that you are giving it a foliar fertilizer treatment of potassium and nitrate perhaps?

[sunny]

I tried it many many times but it never worked. I have a few green mango tree's in 130 liter cement bowls , they never bloomed so far and are big tree's. Now i try waterstressing as well but they are tough and can stand drought.

[Deanhooper]

I have used potassium nitrate and sulfate…I could swear it gives me more flowers but who knows, not really a controlled environment.

[jezo]

Worst case if you have a mature tree is that you are giving it a foliar fertilizer treatment of potassium and nitrate perhaps?

Hi, could you please clarify this sentence? I thought only nitrogen delayed flowering. I have plants in the greenhouse that were flowering two years back, but at the end of summer. I recently tried to use potassium nitrate, but without success.
(I'm sorry for the google translation)

[EddieF]

I can't comment on flowering, but read foliar potassium sulfate increased fruit yield in a study or 2.