The Tropical Fruit Forum

What mango should I grow?
 I've been thinking recently that there's a tree i personally don't care for the mango. With one phone call ican sell as many pounds as I can provide. It would be a real cash cow. That would be East Indian.

From now until June probably won't be much rain in Florida. Seems as though everyone has had good fruit set. Any one have a rule of thumb on this. I've heard of one gallon per foot of tree height once to twice a week. Seems like a good idea at least untiI they get some size to them.🙂

Adding irrigation to Pina Colada. Which has very good fruitset

Overhead frost irrigation taken down going to storage. I'm close enough to the end of the last frost date.

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'?

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.
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My daughter says maha is a after dinner mango. As far as asian mangos, my wife likes Keow Savoy I personally would take a philippine over a Nam doc mai. Okrung Is over poweringly sweet. Ican only eat a little bit. Would like to try Tong Dam. This is one of my favorite trees. I'll like it better than orange sherbert.Po Pyu Kalay was introduced to Florida from Myanmar by Maurice Kong

Quote from: Coconut Cream on March 04, 2025, 06:36:42 AM

See if you can find some Indonesian people in your area and find out where they get their mango trees. I would skip the old Australian varieties that everybody else in your area is growing - what's the point? The recent Zill varieties are mindblowing compared to the old school stuff named after people.

There is a huge cultural element that is not discussed on this forum, people have fruited some of these zill varieties here such as lemon zest and orange sherbert, fruit punch etc, when compared in a group side by side with KP nearly all still favour KP.  One guy I know was so disappointed with his fruit punch that he is cutting it out.

The Aussie mango's such as KP, Honey gold, Calypso, R2E2 etc have been selected with similar flavour to KP because that's what Aussies prefer.  Just because "experts" such as Alex and such don't rate KP or Aussie mangoes don't mean a thing, he also doesn't like Durian so that tells me all I need to know when listening to his taste recommendations.

In saying that I have an orange sherbert in my yard just to compare to local selections.  Mango is a large commercial operation in Australia with a lot of government input likely far exceeding anything happening in Florida. Whilst selections are made here for commercial purposes they are still excellent tasting.

They don't like spiders and snakes, but give them a Kingston Pride, and that's what it takes for a Aussie to love you.🙂
 If you ask a Jamaican, what is the best mango on this planet? They will tell you East Indian  No one else quite understands that answer but to them it makes perfect sense. Had a very nice Asian lady give me a huge Julie mango tree. She just doesn't like the taste. Some of my personal favorites are not Zill mangoes. As a collector if  you want to have the full spectrum of flavor profiles including Zill mangoes makes a lot of sense.

https://youtu.be/Je3EiwKArlQ?si=ZQUSgoPdAjGWQRCV



Chutney please

Quote from: bovine421 on February 26, 2025, 05:22:44 AM

After a cool all day rain Monday. I sprayed systemic frugicide to make sure  the friutlets do not get anthranose. I'll probably spray one more time according to my regiment, then not again until November.  Because the ground was saturated Coconut cream started leaning over to the west. Last hurricane season, the ground got so  saturated and with the strong wind from the east, completely fell over. Can see, this is going to be an on going problem with this tree. I have shaped the canopy very nicely. It has  wonderful fruit set  and after harvest, it's going to have  a severe pruning. Happy Mango mango🙂

Hmmmm, I wonder if you could inarch 3 mango seedlings planted in a triangle around the tree to brace it up. I have been thinking about this technique ever since the hurricanes. I noticed that banyan trees never blow over--no matter how strong the wind due to the aerial roots they grow that root into the ground and act as a brace. It would probably need staked until the graft unions fully healed.

In the short term, I just remembered how windy march can be. Probably take post hole diggers and maybe dig at a forty five degree angle, pointing away from the tree and put a 4×4 post In the ground. I'll have to invest in a heavier duty ratchet strap. Don't really like to do this because of fear of slipping the bark. Wrapped the tree With breathable trunk wrap Before I used a steel stake and lite duty ratchet strap. I had it fairly straight after the hurricane with stakes and straps. After several months I guess I got too optimistic and took the straps off. It was doing really well until the ground got so saturated over a long.of time.Fliptop may  need to number his seedlings before he runs out of names. Congratulations. fliptop The sweet deal mango🙂

4x4 post in the ground. Sounds like the beginnings of a grape arbor

After a cool all day rain Monday. I sprayed systemic frugicide to make sure  the friutlets do not get anthranose. I'll probably spray one more time according to my regiment, then not again until November.  Because the ground was saturated Coconut cream started leaning over to the west. Last hurricane season, the ground got so  saturated and with the strong wind from the east, completely fell over. Can see, this is going to be an on going problem with this tree. I have shaped the canopy very nicely. It has  wonderful fruit set  and after harvest, it's going to have  a severe pruning. Happy Mango mango🙂

 While back I had ask a question about E-4 production on a different platform Group or whatever the terminologie it is. Someone responded that they had bought several  E-4 When they first became available. They said one
was productive the other was inconsistent
They were in close proximity in the grove. Same soil same weather conditions. They are treated  and tend to exactly the same. My intuition has suspected that there maybe slight variations in the clone budwood grafted on to the root stock. Other than grafting Budwood from another sweet tart. I don't know what else I could possibly do other than fertilized with 0-20-20 Fertilizer and maybe some Foliar nutrition spray.

Somatic mutations:
Sometimes, mutations can occur in the cells of a plant during its life, leading to slight genetic differences between clones.

Is it possible when collecting budwood from multiple cloned trees to be grafted to root stock.  That slight Mutated variations have occurred over the life of these trees.

 If these varieties were offered to you as your first mango of the new season and they were all at peak flavor. Which one would grab ?

This is a hypothetical situation but I'm trying determine what I want to graft onto my non flowering, sweet tart
Only consideration is the fruit, not the growth habit or disease resistance

Quote from: UAR on February 21, 2025, 08:38:12 AM

Full bloom in Carrie but no fruit set, likely all male flowers. I’ve heard carrie likes to bloom multiple times, do I wait for these to fall off to give it another chance or just cut them off?

My Carrie set very little fruit this year. Did not flower as usual either. It fruited quite a bit last year though. Might be the off year for it.

There's a zone pusher North of Orlando. That says his Carrie predictably on the first bloom is all male flowers. He states that over multiple seasons he snaps off the first bloom and gets a much better ratio on the second bloom. Next season I'm going to Snap off the first Bloom and then half the second Bloom. As sort of confirmation of this technique, there is a forum member who has about 9 Very mature carrie tree's. He does not spray any of his trees. He's not concerned about any of his bloom getting toasted by frost or powder meldew In december january. He's confident  his trees will rebloom In february march. He's not a commercial grower even though he has many tree's. He always seems to have an abundance of carrie. Which makes me believe there could be validity to the higher female ratio on the second  bloom. I have multiple varieties, so I have the luxury of experimenting. I can confidently state now that all my trees have good fruit set except for the one stinker, Carrie. I snapped all the Bloom off yesterday After confirming they're worthless

Mango 🥭 Fest 2024 had the most impressive display of mango varieties I've ever seen. I recall there were about 111 varieties on display.

I think having it at convention center which is in close proximity to the bright line train station is a stroke of genius. Also if it's anything like the Orange County Convention Center, there's some very good quality hotels with excellent food vendors in the convention center.The Brightline train station in West Palm Beach is less than a mile away from the West Palm Beach Convention Center, with the station situated on Evernia Street, making it a very short distance away by foot or car. As we have discussed on here, it is not possible to have all the Zill varieties at peak flavor on a particular day.
So hopefully they do the best they can and people  have a realistic expectation. The people I've spoken to who've traveled from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale on bright line said it was a very pleasant experience. Just a little pricey.
 Brightline train ticket from Orlando to West Palm Beach can cost between $27 and $110, depending on the type of ticket and time of travel.
Ticket types
Smart: $27–$70
Premium: $45–$110
When to book
Prices tend to increase as the travel date approaches

Quote from: bovine421 on February 20, 2025, 08:06:50 AM

Quote from: Lets Mangoooo on February 20, 2025, 12:24:29 AM

Looks like I need $35 worth of walking around money.

Yep, we have to do our part to create anticipation and  excitement about this event. Hopefully Doctor Campbell will be selling his tie dyed hemp shirts.

The one love mango

Was he there last year?

My East Coast peeps say no.
I guess it would go against the theme Of One Love Mango to promote a cage match between him and Gary

Has anyone heard of this new mango of Zills called One Love. I heard there may be an announcement at mango feast. This could just be a rumor but stranger things have happened.🙂