One for you growers out there. Each year our trees flower during early November. Each year the rain comes along, as it has in great proportions the past two days, and knocks all the blossoms off. The tree will blossom again but only a few flowers, and we'll end up getting about 10 mangos for the entire yearly season.
I can't imagine the professional growers get up there and put a little protective bag over each bloom, but they must do something to save their livelihood. Any ideas what it is? Pete
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How old is your tree? Quite often, if the tree is still very young, this is to be expected. If it's quite a mature tree, then I would be inclined to think there's something lacking in the soil, or maybe you have some or other pest hijacking your tree.
Don't try to impress me with your manner of dress cos a monkey himself is a monkey no less - cold fact
They're about 6 years old. No bugs and they get their regular dose of B2. The blossom stems stay on, but the rain and wind knock off the flowers, one or two of which would normally turn into a fruit. Pete
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Pete,
Usually mangos need a period of many weeks with low rainfall and little irrigation prior to flowering.Water will stimulate vegetative growth which hampers flowering and fruit set.Heavier clay soils will amplify this problem so improving drainage may help.
Fungal diseases due to the trees getting too wet also reduce flowering. Last of all, the flowers need pollinating.Mangoes seem to have poor pollination rates at the best of times, some trees can have many thousands of flowers but may only offer up a fraction of that in fruit.You can help out here by limiting the use of pesticides around the trees and encouraging pollinating insects into your garden.
Do you happen to know what varieties you have growing there?
I'm not sure Deepee. One is the normal sweet when yellow and ripe variety you see all over the markets. The other never turns yellow and you eat it when green...but it's soft and sweet, but not as sweet as the aforementioned. We have a clay soil pan 20cm thick about 3/4 meter down but these trees are through that and into sand, so drainage seems good. There are honeybees everywhere here and they build combs in both trees yearly so pollination should be ok.
I really think the culprit is rain. October is always the wettest over here, and early November has been also for the last 3 years. Unfortunate that's when they seem to want to try to bloom. Pete
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Source
Pete,
the second mentioned variety is probably Nam Dok Mai or Keow Sovey and they tend to cope a little better with the rains than the common mango. Might have to just sit it out this season in the hope of better weather next time round.
Thanks DP. Yes, per the wife the green one is Keow Sovey, but the yellow one I thought the common variety she says is Pim San. That particular one we've gotten 2 mangos per year over 6 years. Makes good shade though so some benefit Pete
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Source
Each year our trees flower during early November. Each year the rain comes along, as it has in great proportions the past two days, and knocks all the blossoms off. The tree will blossom again but only a few flowers, and we'll end up getting about 10 mangos for the entire yearly season.
Pete