re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

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Trimmed up my Pickering and got it staked a bit, it has good structure, but the younger branches haven’t lignified enough to hold the canopy upright. In that process my lone mango came off barely touching it. Guess it was time! Small but wasn’t expecting much this year.

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Looks good. Plan is sound. It's all about building for now.

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DH pushing also, not as vigorous, I think it had some fungal issues early season, but looking better now.

Plan to push growth through this season then hopefully it gets to a good size.

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Also looking very good. Off to a great start.

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I know mangos don’t need much nitrogen, but should I add anything other than osmoocote? 15 gal pots. How long can I keep these going, kind of hoped another year, or is that optimistic?

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At this stage, osmocote alone is absolutely fine. The most beneficial thing you could do additionally right now would be foliar feeding. Mangos respond extremely well to it.

When you get to flowering, fruiting, harvesting, then your fertilizer regime will become more important. My general schedule looks like this:

Post-harvest (mid-summer): the one time I give extra nitrogen. You always prune immediately after the last mango comes off, then you want the N to build next year's fruiting branches. I use 8-2-12 granular slow release with micros and will give fish fertilizer at this time.

Fall: Stop fertilizing except for applying the first dose of langbeinite (slow release 0-0-22, also called K-Mag). This gets the tree ready to flower strongly when the cool weather arrives.

Winter: I usually do not have to feed at all during winter. Watering is also infrequent unless weather is hot. Flowering begins.

Spring: Flowering is in full effect. I give a maintenance dose of the 8-2-12 slow release. Not a lot, just a sprinkling to keep nutrients in the soil. We do not want to overstimulate with N. Once fruit begins to set I give another dose of K-Mag. No more N applications from this point forward until after harvest. I also apply gypsum to make sure the soil has plenty of calcium for proper fruit development.

Summer: Fruit are developing. Nothing except maybe more K-Mag if the fruit appear to be stalling. Water consistently during fruiting.

Year-round: foliar feeding. Do this every few weeks.

You've got at least another 2 years with those pots, maybe even 3. For right now I'd do exactly what you're doing just add a foliar feed. With easy varieties like Pickering you could also go total lazy mode and just do osmocote alone. But hell we're doing something pretty niche here. Don't see the sense in half assing it.

Such a fun process. Blows people's minds when they see a mango tree on your back porch.

maypop
I have tons, I can pot up a root (or ten) for you if you want. I had about 8 potted sprouts but I planted them all a few weeks ago

or if your neighbor is cool with it, feel around at the base and find a stem, then gently dig around it with a screwdriver until you unearth a root, then clip it off and clip off about 6” of the stem, pot it up and keep it watered then when you see new leaves, plant it

edit: here you go LOL

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

So with our weather we inevitably will get temps that likely stimulate flowering in fall. Is that when you’re allowing it to set fruit? Then holding on to the fruit all winter and spring? Or are you allowing BBs to form then picking off and only wanting it to hold the fruit in the spring flush ?

Very welcome my man!

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So with our weather we inevitably will get temps that likely stimulate flowering in fall. Is that when you’re allowing it to set fruit? Then holding on to the fruit all winter and spring? Or are you allowing BBs to form then picking off and only wanting it to hold the fruit in the spring flush ?

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This is very much dependent on your variety and your cold protection setup. Some varieties are very reluctant to re-flower or tend to re-flower with mostly male flowers. If this is your case, I'd allow any fruit set you get and try to keep it.

Mangos can drop flowers/fruit with sustained exposure to the low 40s. If your greenhouse can keep this exposure to a minimum, I would let it hold. If you cannot keep it warm enough I would pick off the fruit when BB sized or just let them drop and then wait for a cool spell closer to spring to induce re-flowering.

You can also spray the tree with gibberellic acid, which will prevent flowering and stimulate only vegetative growth. You have to be very sure about dosage and application times. You could very easily inhibit flowering until the weather is no longer cold enough to trigger it. I have never done this, but California growers are having good success with it.

I let mine hold and set as early as possible since my greenhouse never sees 40F.