Yesterday we had one of the largest Mango tastings in SoCal that I am aware of. Each year, the number of varieties increases and as word spreads about what grows and performs well here, more and more growers start growing these new and better varieties. As more members grow these better varieties, we have a better chance of sampling these better mangos at the perfect stage of ripeness as we have a larger pool of mangos to select from.
We are still in the early stages of Excellent Mangodom but at least now, we are past our infancy period where we plant Mangos on less than ideal rootstocks, wasting 3-5+ years before we realize something is wrong. I also like to think that we are past the stage where we plant common or less than out standing varieties. Kent and Haden for example are great fruit, sometimes even excellent but Kent and Haden are widely available commercially and if someone were to invest the time and effort into planting a Mango tree, I hope they do their homework in order to avoid buyers remorse wishing they had planted a DOT, Lemon Zest or Sweet Tart instead.
It was an absolutely beautiful day yesterday, a perfect day if you were to ask the weatherman/woman. It was 78F in La Habra when Leo and I arrived at Frank's moms house. I immediately thought to myself that this weather in La Habra is just about perfect for growing a wide range of fruit both subtropicals and temperate. As participants entered the backyard our jaws dropped at the sight of Frank's plants, absolutely incredible growth! Last time we were at this house, the trees were newly planted many of them knee to waist high, now they have quadrupled their original canopy size and most his trees were loaded with fruit. We speculated that Frank must be using some sort of illegal banned substance for accelerated plant growth, a sort of plant steroid but we searched around the property and all we could find was a thick layer of mulch a wheelbarrow full of dirt in his garage.
Frank had urgent family matters to deal with so he missed most of the Mango tasting but we were in excellent hands with his mom, Warren and Ashok. Frank's mom almost stole the show with the her home made fruit empanadas that were so delicious that she could very well put Portos out of business if she opened up a shop.
If I Recall Correctly(IIRC), we had 60 different varieties of Mangos with over 160 total number of mangos. Not all the Mangos were sampled because some were under or over ripe. The diversity of Mangos was astounding with varieties that originated from around the world.
For reference, here is a link to last years mango tasting:
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=17181.msg217531#msg217531Here are some pictures of the fruit. I'll add additional pictures and information as I have time.
Simon