Growth of So Cal Mangoes - lack of growth this year? Unusual?

[behlgarden]

Not sure about others, but growth of mango trees at my yard has been pathetic, even the ones that are not holding fruit. some branches or plants go no flush at all. twice new flush fried due to high temps. it is depressing to see them not flush even when we are mid August.

How is your mango plant doing in So Cal this season? Want to make sure its not just me OR I need to do something about it.

[SocalKoop]

Hi Behl, my sweet tart  has gone through several flushes this summer, no tip burn by the heat, although a few leaves got blanched spots when it got over a hundred for a few days. Growing like a weed.

[JF]

I've had one or two flushes horrible. The worse year for new growth.

[FrankDrebinOfFruits]

Just an observation. I have a couple trees that showed no growth for 1 to 2 years until they get pruned (seems counter-intuitive to prune something that you want to grow).  You can try tipping a branch and see if it helps trigger something.   

[behlgarden]

Thanks for the tip. I will try that. Funny thing is that we got late and repeated flowering and that sucked the energy out, then heat wave after heat wave took care of new flushes. I believe its best to prune to the lower node to get flush going. I already started this with my Sweet Tart.

[Eirlis]

My coconut cream has been flushing like crazy. Lemon Zest and Mallika have done nothing. I just tipped them last week to see if that helps. My cocktail tree is has had a flush on two branches, nothing on the others.

[BestDay]

Everything at my house has been doing great!  The summer started slow but everything is growing well now.

Bill

[behlgarden]

I see good growth close to coast as climate there is mild. inland has been a disaster

[Johnny Eat Fruit]

I would agree that so far this year at my location growth flushes have in general been poor with some exceptions. My Glenn, Sweet Tart and Ugly Betty have all put on one strong growth flush so far but the Glenn is appearing to start and 2nd flush now. My Maha Chanok, Mallika, Dot and coco cream have had zero growth so far but at this late stage appear to have some bud swell so perhaps I will get one flush by October hopefully. Lemon Zest and Valcarrie had a poor but single shoot growth that is 8-12" long and that is it so far. My Nam Doc Mai has put out a flush and is growing slowly. Perhaps the biggest surprise is my Valencia Pride mango tree grafted onto manila root stock is just now starting to put out new growth and appears to be a laggard while my Sweet Tart on turpentine has put on a full head of top leaf growth. So far the Glenn is the most consistent grower followed by Sweet Tart.

I suspect the mild summer temperatures in my are are the cause of this (August have averaged day time highs of 78 degrees with lows in the mid 60's) and the lack of heat has reduced growth overall but not all cultivars are effected in the same way as some are growing OK.

Johnny

[behlgarden]

its ironic that you are getting lack of growth due to low temps, while our flushes are burning out with extreme high temps of probably hottest June ever.

[Johnny Eat Fruit]

Yes that is ironic that you have too much heat and we have to little. The marine coastal influences really cool us down relative to the inland empire which can get very hot in the summer.

As a side note earlier this spring I purchased (4) Kent mango seedlings and a number of Manila seedlings in 5 gallon containers for grafting root stock and all of them seem to be doing well and growing steadily. It's only some of the grafted cultivars that there is a issue with poor growth.

Johnny

[rliou]

Quite a lot of my flushes got fried in the recent heat waves but they are now flushing out again so I am hoping that there will still be growth this year.  Interestingly, the sweet tart I have that is mostly shaded by a big guava tree is growing and flushing nicely. 

[AnnonaMangoLord45]

A lot of my fruits got burned out this year, as did potential flushes on my pickering mango tree....

[kh0110]

My backyard is facing SE and my in ground cocktail Manila is doing quite well. I have Alphonso, LZ, Maha, Alampur, Ah Ping, Sweet Tart, NDM and the new Pico from Yucatan (from JF) on it. A lot of new growth and the heatwaves didn't seem to affect them at all. Maybe because of the orientation of the backyard?

[simon_grow]

Most my trees are relatively young as I have been slowly replacing all my Florida Turpentine rootstock trees with trees I grafted on various seedling rootstocks. I did get sunburn on a lot of my newer growth on unestablished trees but new growth from more established trees did not show any signs of sunburn.

I've always had terrible issues with near constant flowering of my mango trees. I still have a Venus on Seedling rootstock that is flowering and starting to just set some fruit which I will remove shortly. Most my trees are on their second growth flush and it appears they are ready to push their third flush of the year very soon.

My Lemon Zest graft on Lavern Manilla rootstock has pushed two growth flushes while ripening several good sized fruit. Leos mature trees appear to have regular growth this year. I will ask Leo how many flushes he has had this year but I would guess his trees have flushed at least three times already.

Simon

[JF]

My backyard is facing SE and my in ground cocktail Manila is doing quite well. I have Alphonso, LZ, Maha, Alampur, Ah Ping, Sweet Tart, NDM and the new Pico from Yucatan (from JF) on it. A lot of new growth and the heatwaves didn't seem to affect them at all. Maybe because of the orientation of the backyard?

Thera, a correction on the variety, it's Pico de Gallo. This variety is Not the same as Pico from the Philippines.This has been a bad year for new growth for young and mature trees in Orange County. At this time last few years we had 3-4 flush the only tree in my yard that had more than one flush is Manohar.

[michsu]

Is it because the air is too dry for most of the day? I do drip now for 35 minutes (increased to 20) and also do a sprinkler spray for 5 minutes (to increase humidity), but that's only done when I get home around 6pm.. I'm having the same problems too.. and also some of the mango trees have long branches, but few leaves.. while others are ok.. still fruiting on some too.. Lemon Zest and St. Maui.. I'll try different things this year and see what happens..

[behlgarden]

I never let a branch grow more than 12" without it having to branch out, this ensures stronger branches and dwarf height.

[Jct]

I feel a little better, planted a Manila in January and it did not do anything until very recently.  I was in a hurry to get it into the ground and part of the root ball fell apart on me, so that slowed it down quite a bit.  This summer's heat burned the initial flushes at the top of the tree.  Some flushes lower down on the tree have done well and put on some decent growth.  I may try topping it soon.

[gozp]

Lemon zest, coconut cream & carrie flushed 2-3 times. They get full sun 10+ hours and they are on nursery pots. I had no issues of leaf burn(even we had the 114f degrees heat last june).

My mangoes are florida rootstock.

[sapote]

Glenn has 3 or 4 flushes,  LZ has 2, Edward and kent seedling have one.  Maha, Alphonsol have none.

In SoCal dry summer, I think if we install a small water mist head for each tree and ON during the after noon, then it should be similar to a tropic. Have anyone tried it?

[behlgarden]

I have and that moisture dries out sooner than it falls on anything, over 100 degrees with 10% humidity doesnt help, but I now have my sprinklers go on for 1 minute ea twice a day, 12:30 PM and 3 PM, to keep area moist and humid somewhat.