The Tropical Fruit Forum

Here’s a few pictures of my Sweet Tart Seedling #2. The taste and shape of this fruit is just like Sweet Tart except the fruit are very large. It could be a clone of Sweet Tart so im going to wait a few more years to see if it consistently produces jumbo fruit. The fruit came off my multigraft tree and this one panicle produced two giant fruit. One fruit weighed 1 lbs 5 Oz and the other fruit weighed 1 lbs 6 Oz. The Brix was 27.5% for the smaller fruit and 27.7% for the larger fruit. The fruit has excellent sugar acid balance and excellent Indochinese flavor, especially close to the skin.









Here’s a picture of the Jumbo Sweet Tart Seedling #2 fruit alongside regular Sweet Tart fruit


Simon

It depends on how your tree is structured but I usually don’t recommend stumping a tree to change over the variety. If your tree has good scaffold branches, I would try to keep them.

Simon

CA Hockey,

It’s been a long road but the years have been flying by and we’re Sri ally starting to get good production on a lot of our trees. All this was just a dream 10-15 years ago but now we’re finally reaping the rewards of all our hard work.

Im super excited that so many of us decided to grow out Mango trees from seed.

When I first started planting mango seeds, specifically the Polyembryonic varieties, I was hoping to get clones but now im actually looking for the offtype or Zygotic seedling from my poly seeds.

I can’t wait to see what interesting seedling selections we will discover in the coming years.

My breakfast for today. M4 seedling.

Gozp, How big is your tree and can you give a description of the flavor profile? Does it taste similar to the real M4?

This is my m4 seedling. Its exceptionally sweet & coconutty.

Brix of 29.3

That’s awesome, do you notice any characteristics of your seedling that is different from the actual M4? Im trying to select for off types or zygotic seedlings from Polyembryonic varieties.

I haven’t had issues using sulfur in my Petra foggers but I constantly mix the solution pretty vigorously. The sulfur settles really fast. I also rinse and flush my foggers with RO water after every use.

I saw the Battery operated version which would be much more convenient but im waiting for more reviews.

Simon Grow, Can you recommend a good ULV fogger? Are any of the battery operated ones able to be used with wet-able sulfur?

The ULV fogger you use will depend on your needs. The small hand held foggers are good for a couple small plants but that’s about it.

If you have a small orchard and have an AC outlet and your trees are all within about 50-100 feet of your property, a cheap corded fogger like the Petra 4 gallon fogger will suffice.

If you have a larger yard or a full on orchard, where your trees are greater than 50-100 feet away from your property, you may want to consider a more expensive gas powered fogger with an agitator like the Stihl SR430 or 450. I don’t have any gas powered foggers but a trusted member named Cookie Monster suggested it in another thread.

I have the corded Petra foggers and it is a cheaper unit with lots of plastic parts that can break but if you’re careful using it, it should provide you years of use.

So the question about my spraying regimen came up multiple times during the mango tasting and several members explained to me that they have been spraying with Sulfur and they still don’t get fruit set on their Lemon Zest and they are still seeing Powdery mildew.

When I asked about their spraying, they said they used a pump sprayer, no surfactant and sprayed only once or twice. This is not an appropriate integrated disease management regimen.

Disclaimer, this is just an explanation of my personal integrated disease management program and im not recommending that anyone copy what im personally doing but it works for me. If you copy what im doing, you’re doing it at your own risk.

This is what I’m currently doing to grow mangos in California. Begin spraying with Sulfur even before the panicles emerge. It is especially important when the panicles are about 50% grown out and definitely before they open up. Make sure you use a wettable sulfur and make sure to use a non ionic surfactant. If you are not using a surfactant, you may as well not spray.

When you spray, make sure you use a ULV fogger, regular pump sprayers have poor penetration and it is extremely difficult to get full coverage of the top and bottom of the leaves and all the nooks and crannies where spores can land. Again, if you’re not using a ULV fogger and you have mature trees, you may as well not spray. Yes, there is an investment in money here and many people will not want to spend $200+ on a fogger but it will save you time and money in the long run by significantly reducing the time it takes to spray your orchard and the significant cost savings by using a fraction of the chemicals required to get full coverage spray on your trees vs pump sprayers.

I am currently using an organic powdered wettable Sulfur from Amazon and I use 4 tablespoons per gallon of water. Add surfactant per instructions and make sure you’re constantly agitating the solution as the sulfur settles immediately. When spraying with Sulfur, I always spray in the early morning or late evening to prevent burn and I never spray if the temperature is going to be above 85F in the next couple days. 85F has been a safe temp for me at my location. Be extremely careful and follow the manufacturer’s instructions if you’ve sprayed oil recently as this can burn and even kill your plants.

When spraying with Sulfur, spray every 2 weeks. After 4-8 weeks of spraying with Sulfur, I usually switch to Potassium Bicarbonate for 2-4 weeks. Again, this is my own special technique and my reasoning for doing this is because the Sulfur spray is low pH and the Potassium Bicarbonate is high pH, generally about a pH of 8 or higher. The alternating between low pH and high pH, in theory, makes it difficult for pathogens to adapt to the extreme pH shifts in their growing environment. I don’t spray open blooms.

Once the Powdery Mildew is gone and the fruit have set, I will add a copper spray every once in a while. I do this to continually disrupt the reproductive cycle of any fungal pathogens. There is research that shows copper can kill bacteria and copper is also a fungicide so adding this to the mix may, or may not, help with the control of bacterial black spots.

I had issues getting fruit set on my Lemon Zest trees but as soon as I started using this specific IDM (Integrated Disease Management) system that I designed specifically for my yard, I have great Lemon Zest fruit set. Unfortunately, I top worked all my Lemon Zest grafts except for a few branches. If I had figured this out earlier, I would have kept my LZ trees/grafts intact as it’s one of my favorite tasting varieties.

Very cool Simon. Your mangoes look great.

A already finished my Seacrest mangoes and the were all excellent. For me they are a early season meaning they ripen from early/Mid September to Mid October.

Still have about 15 or so Sweet Tart mangoes left on my tree and about 8-9 Coconut Cream left. At my location these are Mid season meaning late September to early November.

I have some very large Val-Carries on my tree this year and they are starting to change color. Really looking forward to trying those. Just picked some Guava Mangoes and they look beautiful. Butter creams still look good and the last to harvest at my location are the Peach Cobblers which also look very plump and nice. I will try to post some photos in the next day or two.

Johnny

Sounds like you had a lot of mangos this year. With your earlier ripening times, I would assume you get a good amount of heat units compared to me. Mango trees perform so much better when they get enough heat. Hopefully we can get some of your mangos into a future mango tasting!

Simon

My two favorite mangoes this year (2024) have been Sweet Tart and Coconut Cream.

A perfectly ripe Sweet Tart mango with it’s orange flesh will be a remarkable experience for those that have never had one at peak flavor. Just finished eating a stunningly good Coconut Cream a few minutes ago. What a treat. Looking forward to the next one soon.

Johnny

Johnny, those are two top tier varieties!

Bill, im surprised Edward is a bad producer for you. It had always been very consistent and disease resistant for me. Perhaps it’s because your coastal influence reducing your total total heat units.

Jbirdfunk, yes, those Coachella Keitt are awesome. Our friend Garry lives up in Palm Springs and the heat helps his Lemon Zest make the best fruits I have ever sampled from a LZ tree.

Victoria Ave, good going with your seedlings. It would be great if you could document and give a description of your seedlings next year.

Great report as always, Simon.
Is that your Parfianka pomegranate on table?

Fruitfool

Yes, that is my Parfianka on the table. I brought two perfectly ripened fruit and they didn’t last long. Several members mentioned to me that they’ve never had a pomegranate that good.

I also brought several different varieties of top tier berry type figs and they didn’t last NV1, Sicilian 33, White Algiers, CDD Roja, Cosme Manyo and Nuestra Senora Del Carmen were big hits.

Quote from: simon_grow on October 20, 2024, 11:04:33 PM

Quote from: greenerpasteur on October 20, 2024, 07:45:10 PM

That's really awesome event.

I'm growing a few mango trees myself. Sweet Tart and Orange Sherbert are two I've grafted. How does Maha Chanok or Pickering rank compared to the top 3?

It really is personal preference so even though some people really love Maha, it’s not on my top 20. I used to grow it but I removed it many years ago. Maha is a good tree to grow because it is disease resistant and will set fruit easily and is consistent with production but it was a bit slower growing for me and taste wise, I place it in the second tier. The great thing about Maha is that it is absolutely beautiful because of the color and shape of the fruit. The ripe fruit on the counter also gives off an extremely pleasant aroma. If I remember correctly, a good Maha has Brix around 20%. It is a good mango but there are other varieties with more punch.

Pickering is another good mango with great taste and sweetness. Pickering has a coco nutty flavor if grown and picked properly and I like it more than Maha but I still prefer other varieties more do it also doesn’t make my top 20 list. Pickering is very disease resistant and productive but the slower growth habit is an issue when grown in my marginal climate. I get much fewer heat units here in San Diego compared to Orange County and parts of LA. For Coconutty flavored mangos, I prefer E4, M4, and Coconut Cream.

Both Maha Chanok and Pickering are a favorite for many people and back in the days of Harry Hmmmhausman, Maha was rated #1 at his tastings.

Simon, about heat units, I'm curious what part of San Diego you are in?  Curious how my experience may differ from yours, I'm in Del Cerro (10b outer edge), I have young mango seedlings growing quickly and a couple La Verne seedlings getting big too.

Im in Mira Mesa. My specific location gets frost every year or every other year but only for several hours and only a few days out of the year. The heat units are important for sweetening and sizing up the mangos.