The most flavour some of all tropical fruits are eaten in larger quantities than any other fruit.
Commercial Orchards are now established from Carnarvon to Kununurra.
Perhaps the best news however is that Mangoes can be grown and fruited very successfully in the Metropolitan area, in suburbs not affected by prolonged frosts. A versatile fruit it can be eaten fresh, frozen, made into jellies, jams chutney, pickles, juice and frozen confectionary.
The Tree
A handsome evergreen bushy tree, Mangoes grow to around 5-6 metres. They provide dense shade. New foliage comes through a bright burgundy colour.
Seedling trees are not recommended with one important exception, because they can take up to 8 years to crop. The exception is Australia’s most popular variety “Kensington Pride” also known as the “Bowen” Mango. Seedling trees of this variety can produce their first crops in 2-4 years. While seedlings of Kensington Pride will produce a fruit true to form, most other seedlings are highly variable. This makes another strong case for planting grafted trees, which are of course clones of desirable varieties. Grafted varieties typically fruit 2-3 years after planting.
Mangoes are self fruitful they don’t need a second tree for pollination. Mature trees will produce between 300 and 700 fruit per season. These crops are concentrated in the months of March and April near Perth. The timing of the crop means that the fruit is susceptible to fruit fly attack so it is important to carry out a simple program using Lebaycid as a cover spray.
Getting your Mango tree to establish around Perth requires a bit of extra care. I recommend a climate shelter consisting of a shade cloth surround and top cover. You can support this by 3 or 4 stakes. I recommend a structure of 1 metre diameter and 2 metres high. When the tree is pushing against this cover its time to remove it and expose the tree to the elements
Hi! I keep reading that seedling trees are not good. Why is that? At some point in the past, trees must have been grown from seeds.
Seedling trees are fine, except what you get form a seeded fruit tree can quite often vary form the mother plant.
That’s fine in itself, it may end up being a prolific fruiter or even a better variety but it’s still an unknown and it may take years before it fruits and you find out what you have. Hope that helps.
Yes it does. Thanks! So it’s not necessarily bad to grow trees from seeds; it just has unpredictable results. The way I was reading materials, it seemed like seed trees are always bad.