How To Care For a Mango Tree

Get all the mango tree information on how to care for a mango tree and mango tree problems, including black spots on leaves, mango tree pruning, mango tree diseases, when do mango trees flower and fruit, fruiting cycle, etc. The mango fruit belongs to the family Anacardiaceae and is native to South Asia. The Indian mango fruit tree (Mangifera indica) is commonly cultivated in many tropical and subtropical regions..

Baby Mango Tree

Mango fruit is the national fruit of India, Pakistan and the Philippines. It is the national tree of Bangladesh. In Australia, the first mango box of the season is sold at an auction for charity. The mango tree grows in tropical climates, so the tree will die in temperatures below 1°C (about 30°F). In the U.S. the mangoes can only grow in the southern south of Florida and California.

There are many varieties of mango. The ripe mango fruit varies in shape, size, texture and colour. The flesh of ripe mangoes varies from a soft, pulpy texture to firm or fibrous texture. The raw mango is used to make chutneys ,pickles or cooked.

A mango tree can be grown from a monoembryonic seed in ground or in a large pot, but this will take a long time to bear the fruit. A grafted mango tree may take about 4 years to produce fruit. A mango tree grown from polyembryonic seed may take less than 5 years to produce fruit.

Detailed information on how to care a mango tree including its fertilizer requirement, pests, diseases and other problems is considered below.

Guide To Mango Tree Care

Caring of a mango tree is not difficult. The mango tree is an evergreen tree with large dense leathery foliage. The reddish new shoots looks very pleasing and the mature green leaves also look attractive. A mango tree grows about half a meter a year, reaching up to 35 m high and 15 m round canopy. The growth is slow if the mango is grown in a pot.

Video on Mango Tree Care

Position : Where To Plant

Mango tree needs full day sun in a sheltered position to grow.
Matured mango trees can tolerate hard frosts, but young saplings must protected from frost.
Plant mango tree away from house walls and water pipes as the tree has a tap root with large secondary and tertiary roots which travel long distances in search of water.
I did not have enough sunny spot in my kitchen garden so I selected a sunny spot in the middle of my front lawn.

Mango Tree Root System

Soil

Dig a big hole in the ground and break big chunks of soil and remove any pebbles. Add some river sand and plenty of compost (how to make compost) and aged cow manure.

Planting Mango Seedling

Garden shops generally sell grafted mango saplings. You can buy a mango baby plant from your nursery to save 1-2 years.
You can grow your own mango tree from the seed. If you carefully choose the seed, it can give fruits in 3-4 years (growing a mango tree from seed).
You can plant the mango tree in ground or you can grow it in a pot (How to grow a mango tree in a pot).

Mango Flowers

Diseased Mango Leaves

Caring a mango tree is not difficult if you look for the basic needs of the tree.

Keep thick organic matter as compost and mulch.
Water regular and a little fertilization until they are established. Over watering can kill the plant, if your soil is heavy or not having good drainage.
If you grow mango tree in a pot, water your plant regularly when the plant is young. When the mango tree matures a bit, start to water it when top 2 inch soil becomes dry.
When your mango tree is flowering and producing fruits, increase the frequency of watering (mango fruit drop prevention video).
Lightly fertilize in spring and summer with citrus fertilizer (How to fertilize a mango tree). Too much nitrogen fertilizer will produce leafy growth and little fruit. The plant will be weak, can easily be attacked by bugs and diseases.
Spray foliage with seaweed solution every fortnight.
Spray copper fungicide periodically after the first appearance of the flowers until all fruits had set.

Mango Tree Care in Winters

If you are growing mango tree in a container, then move it indoors when it is freezing outside. Place it in a room which receives some sunlight in day.
If growing outdoors, put Christmas lights on the tree branches to provide some heat in the night. You may cover your tree to protect it from cold, if possible.

Mango Tree Problems

The main bugs and pests of mangoes are fruit piercing moths, fruit-spotting bug, fruit fly, helopeltis, caterpillar, leaf hopper, stem miner, Red-banded thrips and tip borer.
The mango main diseases are anthracnose, apical bud necrosis, bacterial black spot, bacterial flower disease, powdery mildew, phytophthora fruit rot and stem end rot.
The most serious of these is a fungus known as anthracnose, that can cause the flowers to go black and fall off. It also causes black spots on stem and small fruit, leaves may go brown. It is worse in high humidity, frequent rains and the temperature range of 24-32 degree C during flowering and fruit set. It develops black patches on the fruit. Copper fungicide spray reduce the risk of various bacterial and fungal diseases.
Powdery mildew is another serious disease of affecting almost all the mango varieties. This is characterized by the white superficial powdery fungal growth on leaves, stalk of panicles, flowers and young fruits. The affected flowers and fruits drop per-maturely.

Black Spots : Anthracnose Infection

This is the third year of the tree and it appears very healthy but on careful observation, I noticed some distorted leaves, curly leaves and black spots and tiny holes on a few of them and some leaves turning brown.

It was a thing of concerned. I wondered what was the cause of black spots on the leaves? Black spots appeared on both young and old leaves. I also noticed blackspots on leaves, blooms and fruits on my neighbor's mango tree. The young fruit was deformed and split.

On searching for the cause of the black spots, I discovered that the problem was due to Anthracnose infection. Due to this infection on the young leaves, the black spots appear along the boundary causing leaf curl and leaf drop.

I sprayed copper fungicide all over the plant, but as Sydney can have rains all year round, so it rained that evening washing away the fungicide. Next day I had to spray it again. Luckily, the disease was cured. Copper fungicide can also help in copper deficiency.

Mango Flower Pollination

The mango trees produce a large number of flowers, The flowers don't require bees for pollination as needed for other plant and trees. The 75 percent of mango flowers have both female and male parts so these are capable of self-pollinating. The remaining 25 percent of the flowers are male. Many insects and fruit bats pollinate mango flowers.

Once the flowers are pollinated, it takes 3 to 5 months for the tree to produce mature, harvest-ready fruit, depending on the cultivar, growing conditions and weather.

When A Mango Tree Will Fruit?

The mango tree may flower in 2-3 years time. My mango tree produced after 2 years of planting. In the second year a few mango fruits formed but all fell off the tree, only one fruit reached 1 cm. Note that the flowers self pollinate very well.

It had lot of flowers on the old growth in the middle of spring.

The flowers are pollinated by insects but only a small percentage of the flowers will mature to form a fruit. Initially there were a large number of tiny mangoes on the flower panicles, but soon the tree shed a lot of them and now there are only 20 left, that is what the tree can handle. (Look for Causes of premature falling of mangoes.)

The baby mangoes will ultimately reach to full size. They will grow bigger depending on the weather, the hotter the weather the faster they ripen. It takes about four months for the mangoes to ripen on the tree.

You need to protect the fruits from fruit fly, birds and bats. I cover each fruit in paper bags.

Pick the ripe mango fruits (how to ripen mangoes) in summer to enjoy their health benefits.

Mature mango trees fruit only alternating years. There are some ways to induce flowering in "off" years (force mango tree to flower).
Mango Videos

Mango tree care youtube video
How to fertilize a mango tree bideo
Video on Mango flowering spray
Growing Mango Tree in a pot
How to increase mango yield
is it safe to eat mangoes with black spots video
Video on How to grow mangoes from seed, fruits in 2-3 years
Video on 2 year old mango tree producing fruits
Video on 5 Simple methods for ripening mangoes faster
How to make mango trees bear fruit quickly
how to Grow mango tree from seed youtube video
Treating black spots on mango tree and fruit video
Mango veneer grafting in Hindi
mango seed germination in paper towel
Mango tree pruning to make it small
Mango tree care in winter
How to germinate a mango seed in paper towel video

Large Size Mangoes
A tree in the farm of Iqbal Khokhar in Shinor village in Vadodara districts (India) is growing mangoes weighing over two kilograms a piece.

Hemant Patel, N expert from Anand Agriculture University, India said, "This is four to five times the size of even the Rajapuri mango. This phenomenon needs to be researched.
The Fajli Mango grown in Malda, West Bengal, India is normally of 1.5 kg.

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How To Care For a Mango Tree | Mango Tree Care