Author Topic: What causes a "bad year for mangoes"? Mango trees never even flowered here.  (Read 7849 times)

nighthawk0911@yahoo.com

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I couldn't help but notice how many of my mango trees & other old mango trees in my coastal 9B area failed to flower or fruit this year.  Even the old reliable trees in my neighborhood never even flowered this year.  It was a fairly mild winter.  It was a weird year.   Crepe Myrtles that normally flower in May are just flowering now.

Any thoughts about likely causes?

 


Blessed be the man who plants a tree knowing he will never live to enjoy it's fruit or shade.

cmichael258

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It was a strange year for me in the St. Pete area. My Carrie bloomed like crazy and produced only 3 fruits. The Sweetheart Lychee did the same thing and produced no fruit. My Kent produced about 1/3 the normal amount and all the rain we have received has resulted in the majority of them with jelly seed. Weird year. I passed by one house with 12 - 15 Longan trees that were loaded last year. This year not one tree fruited.
Michael

roblack

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lack of abrupt and lasting cold spells

rainy winter, dry spells trigger flowering

nighthawk0911@yahoo.com

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I wasn't paying close attention to the weather, but it did seem like a mild winter with a lack of very many chill hours.
Blessed be the man who plants a tree knowing he will never live to enjoy it's fruit or shade.

WGphil

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Are you using nitrogen based fertilizer

If so change over to potassium based fertilizer

Tropheus76

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Same boat. Very few fruitlets and none that held on long enough to ripen. I have seen a lot more than usual in Orlando so maybe my area was an outlier. My Crepes are still blooming, those that did. I have a whole row on one side of my driveway that didn't bloom at all. Even azaleas were unimpressive this year after having a couple years of amazing blooms. Got some work to do but figure Ill wait until fall. Too hot and humid to do heavy lifting during the weekend days and it rains every evening.

FMfruitforest

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Did they get water during fruitset

noochka1

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It was a terrible year in my neighborhood in East Miramar.  Even reliable old Haden trees were nearly bare.  And of my 20-something trees, only one fruited.  Not a single bloom on Maha Chanok, my star performer last year.  Very disappointing.  I'm blaming the warm winter last year.  I'm not hoping for freezing temps this winter, but a couple of weeks of cold weather would be greatly appreciated.

Scott 

pineislander

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As I understand this sets trees up to begin a biannual habit.
There are some thought on dealing with that:
https://www.themangofactory.com/growing-mangoes/plantingcare/management-of-biennial-bearing-mangoes-part-4-of-4/

FloridaBoy

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Im still a newbie here so forgive me if Im wrong, could it have to do with the lack of pollinators in South Florida?  All I see is development after development being built on precious plots of land that were most likely passed down to a generation who could care less abour nature.   

Mango_Seed

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I wonder what varieties performed good this year, if it was generally a bad year for mangos in south florida?

fisherking73

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Weird cuz my trees had their best year yet. Could be microclimate by me, or varietal issues? Not sure. I am in East Hollywood. Fairchild, pickering and PPK were loaded this year. Coconut cream did its average thing. And honey kiss is loaded with fruit for its size right now. I did notice plenty of bees around my trees, there is a neighbor a few blocks away that has small hive, wonder if any of those bees are his. Avocado fruiting for first time too and has decent fruit set for its size. Even my Rollinia is loaded heavy this year with zero hand pollination.

nighthawk0911@yahoo.com

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It was a terrible year in my neighborhood in East Miramar.  Even reliable old Haden trees were nearly bare.  And of my 20-something trees, only one fruited.  Not a single bloom on Maha Chanok, my star performer last year.  Very disappointing.  I'm blaming the warm winter last year.  I'm not hoping for freezing temps this winter, but a couple of weeks of cold weather would be greatly appreciated.

Scott


The mild winter in our area is also my primary suspect.  None of the trees in my area even flowered and includes a number of different varieties.  I suppose even tropical mangoes need a few chill hours to help force them to flower.   
Blessed be the man who plants a tree knowing he will never live to enjoy it's fruit or shade.

roblack

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My main producer, a 16 foot or so Glenn, produced 81 mangoes this year. Last year it produced 99 (give or take on both years). The tree is a little bigger this year than last, so it seems more than a 20% decrease in production from last year to this year.

edzone9

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My trees did pretty good this season , the only tree that didn’t fruit was my Sweet tart mango everything else did good .

Ed
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Carbo

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I'm in central Broward.  My Cogshall, maybe 10 years in ground and  about 18 feet tall, has always been a spotty producer.  Last year she gave up about 90 mangoes.  This year, all of one. . .and a squirrel got to it first.  LOL
My Pickering, three years in ground, produced about 3 dozen mangoes last year.  This summer, about a dozen and surprisingly, a few had jelly seed.  :(

simon_grow

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It is most likely the lack of chill hours first and foremost followed by untimely growth flushes which have not hardened and stored enough energy. I’ve posted this article before but it’s very useful for those that have not read it.

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1677-04202007000400007&script=sci_arttext

The need for maturation of the current growth flush is severely diminished when there is enough chill hours at the appropriate temperature for an appropriate amount of time.

At my specific location in San Diego where it is so cold that Mangos are marginal, I am able to observe lots of strange behaviors that others in warmer locations might not ever see. For example, I have first hand experience with new growth flushes that occur late enough in the year where new vegetative growth hardens and within a few weeks to a month, it will form bloom panicles.

I recently removed the small fruit set from my Ice Cream Mango and it now has vegetative growths but one sprout has a very strange look to it as if it started out as mixed blooms and then reverted back to vegetative growth. This is in the middle of August. I’ll take a picture when I get home.

Simon

fruitlovers

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Chill hours???  ???  Mangos are tropical and don't need chill hours. Do you really think they would fruit in Myanmar and southern India, where they are native, if they needed chill hours?
There was a crazy bumper crop this year here in Kona and in Maui, zero chill hours also.
Oscar

simon_grow

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Here’s a picture of the weird Ice Cream sprout

Simon

Seanny

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According to Yonemoto, the colder the chill, the more flowers the mango tree produces.

simon_grow

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Yes, I stand by my statement. The original poster stated that many of his Mango trees failed to flower or fruit this year. I ruled out fungal diseases of flower panicles because of this. The OP also stated that it was a fairly mild Winter.

Oscar, have you not seen a correlation between colder Winters and heavier flowering over in Hawaii? Perhaps the varieties that produce well in Hawaii will also perform better in Florida, for the varieties that are more reliant on the cold weather for bloom induction.

Dr Yonemoto over in Japan uses a drop in temperature to induce blooms on his indoor mangos.

I feel the science is pretty solid. I’ve been wrong before and I’m sure I’ll be wrong again but I think the literature backs me up on this.

Simon

fruitlovers

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Yes, I stand by my statement. The original poster stated that many of his Mango trees failed to flower or fruit this year. I ruled out fungal diseases of flower panicles because of this. The OP also stated that it was a fairly mild Winter.

Oscar, have you not seen a correlation between colder Winters and heavier flowering over in Hawaii? Perhaps the varieties that produce well in Hawaii will also perform better in Florida, for the varieties that are more reliant on the cold weather for bloom induction.

Dr Yonemoto over in Japan uses a drop in temperature to induce blooms on his indoor mangos.

I feel the science is pretty solid. I’ve been wrong before and I’m sure I’ll be wrong again but I think the literature backs me up on this.

Simon
One thing is for certain. Mangoes don't need cold chill hours, if they did they would never fruit in the tropics, where they are native to. Plant stress does induce flowering in mangoes in their native areas. But this is always caused by long dry spells in winter time, NOT by cold stress. That being said, it's obvious that cold temperatures can also stress mangoes and helps to initiate flowering. I would venture to guess that ideal years would be years when winter is not only very dry but also cool. Even though mangoes are originally from the tropics, they have become adapted to sub tropical areas. Part of this adaptation has to due with being able to be stressed by cool temperatures into flowering, rather than normal stress factor of long expanded dry spells, which they experience in monsoonal climate areas. Girdling branches is another way to stress mango trees into flowering, but is certainly not normally necessary for their flowering in native areas. Such techniques are used when mangoes are grown far from their natural range. Growing mangoes in areas where it is snowing outside, like Japan, inside greenhouses is about as far away from natural situations as you can get.
Oscar

roblack

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Whether mangoes "need" chill hours or not, sudden cool temps are associated with flowering. Certainly appears to be true here in FL. In areas that stay warm year round, dry spells and other triggers are involved in flowering.

pineislander

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The experience in my area SW Florida was pretty good flowering but very low fruit set. There were exceptions.
There is a big difference between what initiates flowering in subtropical areas and what initiates in tropical areas.
Some of the chemicals used in the tropicas don't work in the subtropics.
There's also lots of variables some can be controlled and some can't.
 http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1677-04202007000400007&script=sci_arttext

StPeteMango

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I got a fair amount of mangoes, but quite a few went bad during the ripening process. Got a lot of rain in early June, before the fruit were fully ripe, and that may have had something to do with it.
Angie, Fairchild, Pickering, Providence and Honey Kiss were good producers. Mahachanok was moderate. Mallika was poor. Cogshall and NDM were the worst: produced fruit that almost all went bad. They're on my hit list now. The NDM will have a Pickering grafted on to its trunk when a friend has the time to do so. Haven't decided what to graft on to Cogshall - Providence is the top contender for now.