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Caring For A Mango Tree

I mentioned at the beginning that mangoes need little care. It's true.Young mango trees do benefit from regular watering and a little fertilizing until they are established. But don't love your mango tree to death. Overwatering can kill it, especially if your soil is a bit heavy. And too much nitrogen fertilizer will make it weak and sappy, all leaves and little fruit, susceptible to bugs and diseases.The older the tree gets, the less nitrogen it needs. Phosphorus and potassium are more important.Mulch your mango tree heavily and spread a bit of compost every now and then. If your soil is reasonable that should be all the tree needs.If the compost is made with wood ash, all the better. (Wood ash supplies potassium which will encourage fruiting and make the fruit taste better.) For mulch use only rough stuff like hay or lucerne, nothing that may mat down and become all soggy like grass clippings.Fertilize mango trees in spring and summer only, and only a little at a time.A good way of helping the tree is foliar spraying with fish fertilizer or seaweed solution. It provides trace elements and avoids deficiencies, but it doesn't overfeed.But your best bet, even on very poor soil, is still lots of organic matter by way of compost and mulch.Photo by Mauro Guanandi
When the tree is one metre high, cut it back by a third so it branches.When those branches get to a metre, cut the tips off again.That should give you a nice shaped tree.

Growing Mango Trees From Seed

Growing mangoes from seed is actually quite easy. (All the seeds of the mangoes I eat, dry and freeze are thrown out in the garden as mulch, and they all grow...)The most important step is the seed selection! If you take any old shop bought seed it may not grow true to type. The seed needs to come from what is called a "polyembryonic" variety.What that means is that the seed will sprout several identical trees. And those seedling trees will be identical to the parent tree. They are clones.Ideally you know the parent tree, it's from your area, grows really well and gets a bumper crop every year! If not, oh well. Get seed from a polyembryonic variety and at least you know that the fruit you harvest will taste the same.(The most common commercial variety in Australia, the Kensington Pride—also known as Bowen-—is polyembrionic. It's also a vigorous tree and usually fruits reliably, so it is well suited for seed growing.
If anyone knows a good variety to recommend to US readers, please let me know.)The best time to grow mangoes from seed is the beginning of the wet season (beginning of summer).Eat a nice mango, remove as much flesh from the seed as possible and then let it dry for a day or two.To germinate the mango seed you could just put the whole thing in a warm, moist place and wait for it to sprout. Then cut off all the seedlings except for one. (The smallest supposedly gives you the best fruit.)Or, if you prefer to fuss over them (or if you have only one seed but want half a dozen trees) then you can carefully cut a corner of the fibrous big seed. Cut only just deep enough so you can see the two halves of the seed, and then break it open.Inside you find several small bean shaped seeds. Hopefully they are white and not all grey or brown and shrivelled...You can plant those mango seeds individually. They should take about ten days to sprout. I like to sprout my seeds right where they are to grow. That way I don't need to worry about hardening them off (getting a shade grown seedling used to full sun) or about transplanting shock. If you are worried about the little thing getting eaten, uprooted or trampled you can always put a barrier around it.

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