We have a grafted mango r2e2 variety about 20 years old and it drops all its fruit just after they set . Most never get more than the size of your fingernail. I've read this is probably because of rain during the flowering process and should be sprayed bi weekly with copper oxychloride to stop the anthracnose???. I'm from Brisbane area and there are lots of local mangoes grown in this region so think surely if it was because of rain all local crops would fail. Do I have a copper deficiency or could it be the variety of graft. Over the last 15 years the best cop was about 3 fruit up to 1 kg each. My father told me years ago the they had a mineral deficiency in some fruit trees and drove in some copper nails and left some galvanised iron in the fork of the tree and this helped as the tree grew it grew around the iron and swollowed the minerals. Do you have any ideas of helping my tree without having to spray with some chemicals. Regards John
While I know absolutely nothing about mangoes, these articles may have some nuggets of information for you: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/mg216 https://www.miamiherald.com/living/home-garden/article1962688.html
The artical is interesting but more or less suggested it could be a fungal issue. My question is how to treat this naturally John
I'm going to parrot what I learned from Dr Elaine Ingham's "Soil-Food Web Course" and Geoff Lawton's PDCs: 1) Plant health is directly related to soil health. Healthy soil contains far more beneficial micro-life forms than pathogens and the beneficial microbes will keep pathogens in check. 2) Basic soil tests will highlight deficiencies in the soil and can be remedied by such additives as rock dust 3) Making good compost will breed beneficial microbes, which can be spread on the ground or made into teas for spraying on foliage, jump-starting beneficial soil life and keeping it healthy in the long-run (with periodic applications of chop-and-drop, leaf litter, and compost as soil life "food") Relative to this, what condition is your soil? We are practicing this regime here with excellent results so far, although it is difficult to make good compost in this semi-arid climate. Establishing a growing layer of living topsoil has reduced our irrigation needs and the trees we have show marked improvements from when I purchased the place years ago. Anecdotal evidence to be sure, but there is significant science behind Elaine's work and conclusions.
Thanks for your feedback and consideration. We have had swales in our place for the last 4.5 years and I think we are close to maximum hydration. I’ve had the soil tested and the commercial report suggests 100grams of gypsum per square meter. We have our own compost from a chicken tractor. And also chop and drop. The soil will be improving over time I agree. I guess I’m not adding compost teas as a folia spray this could be a real task for a large tree. I have not given up on this tree so will continue as much as I can. Thanks again for your input John
Sounds like you're doing all the right things to build soil John! The compost tea foliar spray is a technique Elaine uses to apply beneficial microbes to the tree leaves, providing an active barrier to not-so-beneficial intruders. Although with healthy soil these beneficial microbes will colonize the leaves anyhow, the tea sprays accelerate the process and can aid in repelling a pathogen outbreak. I have not tried this myself ... making good compost is quite difficult in this dry climate and most composting happens during the winter months when we have the majority of our precipitation. However, it is often below freezing during these same months. Most of my compost is made right on the ground with mulch from the chooks (straw and manure) and chop-n-drop, assisted with red worms and worm feeding stations for our kitchen scraps.
if your tree is having problems, but other similar trees are not and the conditions are about equal, i would say that it is possible that the tree's graft isn't very good. sometimes you get a viable result, but they are not always the best... my $0.02
have you tried adding calcium? calcium helps strengthen the tree as calcium helps strengthen our bones. i live in a real wet climate and we only get large crops of mangoes down by the coast or over on the dry side of the island. the rains usually knock off the flowers here so fruits dont even form. so its safe to assume if there are other good producing mangoes around you, your climate should be suitable. and i wouldnt image the anthracnose would affect the fruit at such a young stage. i dont know that much about anthracnose but i think it forms when the fruits are starting to mature, typically associated with rains in that stage. now ive got an avocado tree that always drops tons of tiny immature fruits, when i inquired a teacher when i was taking a korean natural farming class she instantly recognized to give it calcium to help the tree hold onto those fruits. but the avo produces so much fruit i didnt want to add the calcium because i dont want those extra fruits. i know, its ridiculous but i do have an avocado problem when i get 7-10 fruits per day for 4-6 months a year. from a single tree, and there are at least 15 producing avos here. anyway i would try adding calcium. you could try getting some store bought or locally made, we have a calcium carbonate local product from crushed coral thats wonderful here. or look into korean natural farming and check out the way the char their eggshells to add it that way. kind of like making biochar
