The Tropical Fruit Forum

i have a grafted macrantha which im pretty sure is the real one which came from zappalas farm but through a different farm which they likely got the scions from the origonal. ive also had the fruit from zappalas and it has much less of a smell but not none. the flavour is classic durian, nothing special but also not bad.

I also got a grafted musang king from zappala which has just been brought into the country. it cost $1600 but we bought as a group and grafted it between us.



this was a few months ago so its a bit bigger now

Yeh from all the reports I have seen/heard about Macrantha it is nothing special and a big flop really. Maybe it is a different species but if it doesn't taste any better than a regular durian....  I have had the opportunity to buy seedlings from this tree many times but haven't bothered, not really interested in a grafted one either.

Yes heard all about the $1600 musang king trees, they seem to have gone quiet after that initial post.  They were brought into the country at the start of the century but have only been made available to the public last year.  I hope they perform and taste the same as Malaysia for you when grown on FNQ soil time will tell.

Chrobrego, my wife and I have said many times if we could only plant one mango it would be the Maha. We grow approximately 34 different mango varieties on 2.5 acres in Southwest Broward (humid interior), including most of the cvs mentioned above. Maha stands out above the rest because it scores so high in so many different metrics. Flavor first. It has a good sweet acid balance, and is very aromatic (notes of carrot and perhaps Durian). We never seem to tire of it. Among our family, our friends and neighbors, this is the variety they ask for the most. We would not consider a NDM or PPK the substitute for a Maha. I grow and love the Alampur Banashan (aka Iman Passan), but it is not very fruitful in the few fruit it provides often split. I have 20+ years of experience with both Maha and Alampur.

No other mango in my yard has better disease resistance and productivity than the Maha. No other mango in my yard has as such a good seed (skinny) to flesh ratio than the Maha. Some mangoes are done fruiting in 3 weeks. Our Maha can sometimes go 2.5 months. As the season draws to an end we stockpile a few in the refrigerator, and they have held up well there for a month or more. While Maha is not dwarfish, I can keep it at a manageable size (12-14 ft), unlike other more vigorous mangoes in my yard (e.g. VP).

Good luck with whatever you choose.

What he said, Maha for sure

Awesome story,

It seems like she really cares about her workers. You can tell she really likes Maha a lot more than the other varieties. I would love to see her reaction if she were to try a Sweet Tart or Lemon Zest. Hopefully some of the better Zill varieties are making their way to our friends down under.

Simon many of the poly ones are here and in peoples backyards. They are not commercial however. The commercial industry has its own breeding projects happening with a fair few hybrids coming out mainly using KP and Irwin crosses as well as van dyke and kp crosses.

https://youtu.be/sNONF_FS1cM?si=_2IUeYyCuEdpEDTA

Thought some of our American friends might like to see how mango is grown here on huge commercial scale

I don’t buy much of the “mangos should all be harvested mature green!” sentiment—I think that’s mostly self serving nonsense propagated by big farms that directly profit from this behavior. I have 15 premium varieties in my yard, without question none of them are better harvested “mature green” vs tree ripened as much as possible.

This is the truth, applies to almost every fruit out there too.

I've heard R. Campbell say in videos that mangoes should never be tree-ripened.  That seems controversial.  If you're selling them or shipping them, that would be the case.  But for personal/family consumption?  I guess the idea is that maximum sugar content is reached one stage before full ripeness and that they will ripen more evenly off the tree.  On the other hand, I can't imagine that our hunter/gatherer ancestors were eating anything other than tree-ripened fruit.  I guess when you've been doing something as long as he has, you always come up with your own ideas that become hard-and-fast rules!
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I respect the guy's mango knowledge and experience very much, and I've learned a lot from him over the years, but that goes 100% contrary to my experience with mangoes. There are definitely some varieties that do okay with being harvested early. Maybe the ones he grows are like that. But nearly all of the varieties I grow are several orders of magnitude better-tasting when allowed to fully ripen on the tree. I realize, though, that you can't really sell mangoes like that, and he's a mango seller. Tree-ripened mangoes have a day or two at most before they start developing off flavors (except for ones with high acidity, like Sweet Tart).
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Yep he is a mango seller and shipper its in his best interest to tell people that they should be picked mature green, anyone with their own trees will always be better off tree ripened and that applies to pretty much every fruit i can think of.

Also I find strange about Richard is if you were new to mangoes and watched his videos you would be under the impression that many of the zill mangoes that he talks about such as orange sherbet were created/found by him. He seems very reluctant to mention Gary zills name much when doing his talks, i find that strange considering many of the mangoes he talks about are selections of Garys not his......

David H,
Thank you, I have been having this little battle with quite a few of the nurseries and even more of the keen collectors claiming to have varieties that can't possibly be authentic, as they all eventually say they got the varieties from Mike or from someone who did. Even when they know they are selling a product not as they state, they still go ahead and do it. Anyway... When it comes to US varieties that, as far as I can tell, all came via Mike, and as you stated, Mike always told everyone, all the varieties came from seed except for a reasonable collection from Ayre. I have only been collecting for three years and have around 80 varieties, the majority I have collected from Mike, Fitzroy, and the Seed Bank at Ayre. I, too, got the Zill bug but have removed all varieties that were not polyembryonic, except Bailey's Marvel, which by the time I understood about Mono's and Poly's is now at an age that it is worth waiting for fruit. The good news is that many of the varieties that have excellent reputations are poly, Sweet Tart, Orange Sherbet, Lemon Zest, etc, so there is a reasonable chance that some are the real deal. How they perform here is another question. I would love to get some advice from you. Again great to read from someone who knows what is going on. Cheers Dan

Hey mate I too have come to this conclusion after a few email exchanges with some of the big name nursery here.  I was quite disappointed to find that they didn't really know whether some of their mono mangoes were sourced from budwood or seed so I now avoid anything mono like the plague just in case. Not just zill varieties but some of the Indian mono are likely been sold from seed as well. Buyer beware.  Im sticking to mango that have been around a lot longer at this stage the only zill mango I currently have is orange sherbert so we will see how that turns out, hopefully ok being a poly.

2 inches what the heck thats insane!!!! I thought it was dry here ive "only" had 61 inches so far this year for 2025. Last year I had 155 inches and the year before that 197 inches !!!!! You wanna talk about anthracnose on mango we are the experts here.

I found a really good Honey Gold to be about equal to a Kensington Pride, but from memory it was a little less tangy and Fibrous.
R2E2 I hate. I hate the texture, and I hate the flavour. It's got zero tang and low sweetness.
Calypso is like a Kensington but inferior to it in every way. Less tang, less sweetness, less flavour - but it did have more colour - not that it really matters to a homegrower.
Keitt is nearly as good as Kensington, and has a similar flavour, and starts fruiting (commercially) as soon as Kensingtons start to come to an end.
I like that new 'Maha Bliss', and I reckon it is equal, if not a teeny bit better (hate to admit it!) than KP.

What do you do you think of any Florida selections that you have tasted, Gone Tropo? Has your orange sherbet fruited?

I find it really interesting finding out about the difference in Mango preferences between Aussies and Americans. At the end of the day, I want to try as many interesting mangoes as I can, and if I don't like them I can just top work them (and grow more varieties!).
And interesting point: Could the reason that there have been so many mango varieties bred and introduced in Florida be that when mangoes first went commercial, people were dissatisfied with the Tommy Atkins, and wanted better mangoes, and that desire to breed better mangoes never faded? Here in Australia, from my understanding KP was the first commercial mango, and from the start people loved. Why breed tonnes of new varieties when you have already found 'the best'?
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Hey mate I personally prefer calypso, R2E2 and certainly honey gold over KP taste is of course subjective.  My orange sherbert hasn't fruited yet and my lemon zest died.  The people I know who have tried these zill varieties and compared with KP are people with large mango collections who know there mangoes well and I trust what they say. I will however come to my own conclusion once my own trees come into production.

Maha is excellent, I have tried most of the older florida varieties that are here and i dislike all of them they all have a chemical/turpentine aftertaste that our aussie mango's don't have.  Our tastes seem to align much more with the SE asians.

You ask this question on what should be called the Mango forum as 99% of people here are in florida or california and the answer you will get is mango

If you ask this question to the rest of the world and true tropics the answer you will get is Durian.  We can grow both Durian and mango side by side here and mango whilst great is not comparable to good durian and pretty much all of SE asia, China and many other places would agree with that.

Chempedak/Chemepjak had some of these in recent times that absolutely blew me away and certainly give durian a good run for its money.

yes please, as much as I like mango it is actually off putting to log on and see nearly nothing but mango topics. There is very little interaction from people outside florida/california for this reason i believe.

Pulasan seems to grow fine here I have only two trees and they have never had shade cloth or any irrigation whatsoever other than when they were newly planted to get them established. They are both seedlings one flowered already at 3.5 years old unfortunately looks like male, the other is yet to flower they are 4 years old. 

Like others have said ramutan are at least twice as vigorous and are amongst the toughest trees in my yard, many of them get flooded regularly disappearing completely underwater and doesnt faze them.

I have two lychee trees in my yard both too young to fruit however lychee are generally a disgrace here producing fruit maybe every 3 years if your lucky, because they are such an excellent fruit i had to plant two trees anyway just for that once every 3-5 year chance of a crop.