Sweet Tart Mango Tree Producing in SoCal

[Johnny Eat Fruit]

My young Sweet Tart tree seems to be producing well this year. Walking around the tree I count 40+ fruit egg size or larger. Hopefully, most of them will hold until maturity.

Enclosed are a few photos from different angles to show the developing fruit. I hope to begin picking some in late September. In 2021 most of the fruit split and were lost. This year it seems to be less of an issue. I have somewhat reduced water application and do not fertilize until after the fruit ripens. Perhaps the tree is more mature and less prone to splitting. Grafted this Sweet Tart in 2016.

Is anybody else in SoCal that is growing this variety have good production this year.? It would be good to hear from others and compare production and growth.

Johnny



Sweet Tart Mango Tree with Fruit (8-4-2023)



Sweet Tart - Top Half of Tree (8-4-2023)

[shaneatwell]

I have one branch. Grafted year before last. Holding about 7 fruit. Was happy to see it was powdery mildew free when the rest of the tree was covered.

[fruitnut1944]

That's a beautiful mango tree. And nice looking fruit. Your maturity sounds like it will be about two months behind FL. Is that about normal for your other mango trees?

[Eggo]

My grafted branch from last year is holding onto one lonely fruit.

[MadFarm]

Great looking tree, good luck with fruit!

[sapote]

My young Sweet Tart tree seems to be producing well this year. Walking around the tree I count 40+ fruit egg size or larger. Hopefully, most of them will hold until maturity.

when were the flower bloom? Location in Fountain valley OC? I'm in Burbank and my ST doing well consider it's a small graft branch about thumb size and holding 3 fruits -- 2 about pingpong size and one is tennis ball size. The flowers were in late May and covered with PM but somehow it holds 3 fruits.

Lemon Zest big tree with tons of beautiful handsome flowers but ended up zero fruits, and I mean none I will force the flowers not later than April to avoid PM during June glooming in our area.

Btw, Sweet tart tastes excellent and I think it's better than LZ (a bit chalky)

[Oolie]

Looks good Johnny, but the new leaves are showing micro lockout. You could add some sulfur to help lower the pH into a range the tree prefers.

ST does have thin skin and can crack closer to ripe, but splitting early is usually calcium or boron related.

[shaneatwell]

Check this out. The section in the top middle-right w/o PM is sweet tart. Rest is tim thompsons pineapple. Mid may.

[Johnny Eat Fruit]

Looks good Johnny, but the new leaves are showing micro lockout. You could add some sulfur to help lower the pH into a range the tree prefers.

ST does have thin skin and can crack closer to ripe, but splitting early is usually calcium or boron related.

Sulfur application is likely a good idea from time to time to keep the ph in check. I do it more frequently with my Macadamia trees which are much more sensitive to a ph of 7.5 or higher.

I started to apply Azomite to all of my trees now so there should not be any major issues with micronutrients hopefully.

The Sweet Tart leaves you referred to are from last year's (2022) summer flush. When the new flush starts soon those old leaves are likely to start dropping off. The problem for SoCal and my location is the cool spring and mild summer temperatures we have. Thus far this summer has been mild with an average low of 65 and a daytime high of 80. This moderate Mediterranean climate is not ideal for growing mangoes. My sweet tart mango tree will get only 1-2 flushes per year at most which is why my mango trees are so small relative to their age. Oh Well.

Johnny

[MasonG31]

My Sweet Tart mangoes are starting to crack.  I think I overwatered.  These are from a Sweet Tart mango seed I planted in 2018.

[Johnny Eat Fruit]

Yea, the same thing happened to me in 2021 regarding the fruit split. Check out my previous post. You can do a search under my name and "show posts". Look back to 2021.

Remove all of your fruit and apply organic fertilizer and azomite now. Focus on vegetative growth for the next 2-3 years. Your Sweet Tart Mango tree is still too young and needs more maturity as mine did.

Good Luck

Johnny

[sapote]

My Sweet Tart mangoes are starting to crack.  I think I overwatered.  These are from a Sweet Tart mango seed I planted in 2018.

Does it have developed seed in there? Fake seed tends to cause crack.

[MasonG31]

Yea, the same thing happened to me in 2021 regarding the fruit split. Check out my previous post. You can do a search under my name and "show posts". Look back to 2021.

Remove all of your fruit and apply organic fertilizer and azomite now. Focus on vegetative growth for the next 2-3 years. Your Sweet Tart Mango tree is still too young and needs more maturity as mine did.

Good Luck

Johnny

Thanks for the tips Johnny.  I’ll try it, although the thought of removing all the fruit is quite painful, lol.  At the moment, the tree is flushing lots of vegetative growth as well.  Do you have any fertilizer recommendations in terms of brand or ratios?

[Johnny Eat Fruit]

I like Down to Earth organic fertilizers but any good quality one should do fine.

My Sweet Tart tree is not quite flushing yet but will hopefully do so later this month. The Tree will likely only get one good flush this year. Wish we had Miami weather for a few months as that would help with our growth of subtropicals. It's cloudy and moderately cool this morning in Huntington Beach.

Johnny

[Victoria Ave]

Though I wish I owned coastal property the one solace I take in the Riverside heat is that my mango trees love it. Trees that are holding fruit are on their second flush of the year and trees not holding fruit are on their fourth.

I have several sweet tart grafts I did this year that are on their second flush, so hopefully I will have my very own in two years