A number of years ago a client contacted me about an old mango tree in his yard. He was planning on leveling his current house and yard to build a new home in La Jolla, California. He had planted this mango tree about 25 years ago and had never gotten any fruit from it because the fruit would split when it got to be about halfway through it’s growth period, never making it to harvest. Before he demoed his yard he wondered if I wanted the old mango tree, knowing that growing fruit trees was one of my hobbies. I jumped at the challenge and said yes, I would definitely take the tree.
The tree was situated between his swimming pool and some large rocks and was difficult to get out. I spent about a half a day digging it out and moving it to my truck. It wasn’t easy as you can imagine, between the root system and where it was situated.
I immediately took it to my yard and replanted it. I only got a few fruits over the years. Everything would split when it was small, but the fruit I did get was incredibly good and I was determined to find out why it was splitting.
It took about five years of experimenting with different tests to figure out what was going on. In the end I determined the fruit was splitting because of a combination of two problems. First, this tree doesn’t like a lot of water while it’s fruiting. Second, it gets a bacterial disease around the same time of fruiting. Between the two, most years the tree would have no fruit, or underdeveloped split fruit.
I purchased a commercial soil tester to check the moisture levels in my soil and kept the moisture at a low point but not totally dry. This solved my overwatering problem.
I then sprayed each week, alternating between a copper spray one week, and an organic biological spray then next week. I did that for a month, then cut it down to every three weeks, alternating the sprays for that period. This solved my bacteria problem.
This year I got over 50 large mangos with an incredibly sweet flavor. The fruit is not only delicious, but has almost no fiber and a very thin seed in the center.
It was well worth all the time and effort I put into that old mango tree. Since mango trees can live to be 100 years old or more, I will be enjoying mangos for many more years to come. It will most likely outlive me!
