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Growing a mango tree from seed – one year time lapse [video]

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Re: Growing a mango tree from seed – one year time lapse [video]

#71
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of tropical fruit is uninteresting in the USA: bananas, pineapple, mangoes etc have little flavor and typically one variety is available at most. I sometimes have 50 year old memories in dreams of eating fresh fruit and they are so different in form and flavor I wonder if they are hallucinations. But as you point out, they require a climate unavailable on the continent so have to be harvested unripe and transpo…

> I should be amazed they exist at all. Exactly this. Go back a century and the idea of eating exotic fruits like these was the only available to the wealthiest. It's a shame in a way that bananas and the like have become ubiquitous, to the detriment of fruits which were locally available.

> It's a shame in a way that bananas and the like have become ubiquitous…

I’m happy to be able to eat a banana; merely sorry that the ubiquitous one is such a boring variety.

The consequences of the industrial monocrop banana will be solved soon one way or another: the cavendish is under attack and either it will be replaced or all bananas will go extinct. I suppose Hegel would have appreciated this example.

Re: Growing a mango tree from seed – one year time lapse [video]

#72

Aren't mangos like avocados, where the tasty fruit is grown from cloned grafts and not from seed?

Polyembryonic mango varieties can be true to seed, whereas there are no polyembryonic avocados (so they only rarely produce decent fruit from seed -- grafting is much more important for avocados).

Re: Growing a mango tree from seed – one year time lapse [video]

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I eat mango (10 per year?), but I never opened the shell of the seed. I thought it was the seed. The seed can be planted with the husk, but removing it speeds up the germination because the embryo can access light and water more easily.

I assume they evolved to have the inedible husk to prevent damage while being eaten and increase the distance from the original tree, effectively delaying germination. (If you can describe evolution as having an intention…)

Yes this is exactly it. Mangoes lost their megafaunal partners (giant sloths?) so they're evolutionary anachronisms

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1259/

Re: Growing a mango tree from seed – one year time lapse [video]

#74
post #8

For growing mango from seed, or really anything from seed, you cannot beat a small plastic container (like what cottage cheese, sour cream, or green yogurt might come in) filled halfway with coconut coir. It's absolutely the best medium for germinating seed. Fill halfway with coir and water once a week. Coconut coir keeps water evenly distributed and I've never had a seed or seedling mold over using it. I personally…

I've found that if you don't transplant out of such containers very early, the root system is stunted. Instead, you can take two cardboard 1/2 gallon milk containers, cut the bottom off of one and stack them to make a tall tube pot. Fruit tree seedlings can survive in that kind of pot for 6 months to a year and then can be planted in the ground without disturbing the roots (you just dig the hole, cut the bottom of the bottom cardboard container and place in the hole, fill the hole with dirt, and pull the cardboard container off like a sleeve).

Re: Growing a mango tree from seed – one year time lapse [video]

#75
It’s amazing to think that on a societal wide level we refuse to ascribe consciousness to that which clearly shares all the traits of being alive and self-aware.

That, whatever it is, must be conscious and not just “on some level” as if humans have retained some special social status across species.

Re: Growing a mango tree from seed – one year time lapse [video]

#76
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depleted soil leading to -> the margin of the leaves start drying -> so they add hormones or manure -> the plant suddenly experience a "multi branching" event at the end. Mangos are sensible to mineral deficiencies.

I tried to "grow" a couple of mango trees in Switzerland on my balcony, but they all died within 1 or 2 years, I think I burnt one with too much fertilizer, another one due to the weather being too dry and one, I am not too sure but I suspected not enough mineral as it took almost 2 years, I hoped it would grow :(

Is just not an easy plant to grow in your climate.

Re: Growing a mango tree from seed – one year time lapse [video]

#77

I grew up in Egypt, my dad is from a town on the Suez Canal called Ismailia, famous for its mangoes. We would wait the whole year for mango season (August/September). As kids, our clothes would all get mango stains. Our parents would make us take our shirts off before we eat them to avoid that. I moved to the US, and I haven't had a good mango here. When friends visit Egypt, I tell them to get mangoes (in season, aro…

Have you visited Miami in season? I avoided them sue to allergies in the family but we had a few mango trees in our yard which would produce mangos so large they would fall off the tree and burst when they hit the ground.

Here is a video of a guy growing a variety of them in South Florida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2czF7QBxPs

Bet they ar least taste better than super market stuff. However, I guess it is no business if you could sell them two months a year.

Re: Growing a mango tree from seed – one year time lapse [video]

#78

I grew up in Egypt, my dad is from a town on the Suez Canal called Ismailia, famous for its mangoes. We would wait the whole year for mango season (August/September). As kids, our clothes would all get mango stains. Our parents would make us take our shirts off before we eat them to avoid that. I moved to the US, and I haven't had a good mango here. When friends visit Egypt, I tell them to get mangoes (in season, aro…

First time I went below the equator and saw a local fruit stand I didn't recognize half the produce on sale. It took me a while to realize that not only does everything taste so much better, the same items that would easily fit in the palm of your hand when bought as exported would comfortably feed a family of four. So I just didn't recognize a lot of the stuff even if I knew them already.

Re: Growing a mango tree from seed – one year time lapse [video]

#80

Can someone explain why the leaves started to die by the end of it?

According to the video description, the tree got a pest infestation around day 210. I assume that's what's responsible.

I wonder if it's coincidence or not, but I once grew a mango from seed in the US, kept indoors, and it did similarly - grew great for about a year (got to about 2 foot tall), then got sick and died. I wonder if there's something in the US that mango trees arn't used to dealing with?

Very interesting to watch grow though - each set of leaves starting out floppy and purple then stiffening up and turning green, just like the one in the video.

I just planted the whole mango pit as-is, without removing the inner seed, and it had no problem germinating.

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