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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]

#161
post #47

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…

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…

survival of the shippest

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

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the area with these strawberries? Asking for a friend..

Hood strawberries grown in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.

God, I had a mixed berry smoothie at a random spot in Eugene over a decade ago, and it blew my brain right out the back of my skull.

Oregon's berries are no joke.

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

#163
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…

My experience is very different !

Coconut coir is a real pain and struggle to remove and separate from the roots when you need a transplant.

Likewise small plastic containers are way too small for growing trees especially from large and medium seeds like nuts or mangoes.

Ideally, you want to pick a really big one (at least 5 to 8 liters) with a preference for depth over width, to grant the tree more space to grow and not damage the roots. They are quite sensitive in the first year, and each transplant will slow the growth for 1 to 3 weeks.

Growth is driven by two things : environment (sun/water/temperature) and soil. The one you find in most gardening shops is fine, as long as it's not too heavy and doesn't contain peat (might be difficult for our North American friends). I switched to fine, light soil with mycorrhizae and wood fiber, with a greater success.

Fertilizer is completely optional in the first year, but if you add some, avoid putting it in contact with the roots.

Finally, trees grow stronger if they are kept without support under the assault of the rain, wind and sun. They are meant to resist and adapt to their environment, so you really don't need to add a prop to keep them straight.

This year, I'm testing different style of pruning. My intuition tells me that no-to-very-light pruning yields better development than the fast and heavy pruning you see in gardening shops.

PS: I've grown 30 trees from seeds on my small balcony.

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

#164

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…

I remember sitting in a carabao mango tree in the Philippines and eating them until I got sick...

Sadly, these days in Melbourne the majority of mangoes sold at supermarkets and fruit shops are Calypso mangoes, which are powdery, not as sweet, and not as juicy. I find this weird though given that 80% of mangoes produced in Australia are Kensington mangoes and yet are harder to find :(

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

#165
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…

[deleted]

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

#166
post #95

I really want a solar powered time lapse camera that takes a photo around noon every day, saves to SD card. Would be great for plant time lapses. I haven't been able to find anyone who's done this already. It seems like there are trail cams and similar that have all the parts, so this should be possible to manufacture for a price point of around $50, and I think it would be an amazing product: I bet every gardening e…

Raspberry Pi Zero with a camera module and case? Plus solar panel and battery, and maybe some waterproofing. Hmm, a RasPi would probably be too power-hungry...

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

#167
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 wonder if there's a market in the U.S. for luxury fruits. I always hear about these incredible fruits available abroad that are only available in certain seasons, in certain climates, that decay quickly and travel poorly. Presumably, you could grow god-tier mangoes year-round, right in the city, by simulating the right climate in fancy greenhouses - if you did it right, you wouldn't have an electric bill. If the ma…

> I wonder if there's a market in the U.S. for luxury fruits

As a hobbyist rare fruit grower and someone who spends a lot of time watching rare fruit YouTube, I would say that even though all the ingredients are there, it would be a huge uphill battle.

First, let me say the amount of hype right now around rare fruit is completely insane. It's literally hundreds of times harder to get the top fruit cultivars than it is to get a new nike drop, a PS5, etc. Often they only go on sale one day a year and are completely sold out in less than a minute.

The problem though is that to build a business you need repeat customers. There aren't many people willing to pay $20+ for some weird looking fruit they've never heard of, let alone do this on a weekly basis. Similarly, there aren't many people willing to pay $20+ for a single apple on a regular basis, when they can buy apples at the store for less than a dollar.

As it currently stands, most of the people who would be interested in this don't have the money to pay for it, and most of the people with the money to pay for it aren't interested. I think YouTube has the potential to change this, but it clearly hasn't happened yet.

It would be cool to open a story in NYC dedicated entirely to rare and luxury fruit, but it would be an insane amount of work to market it. And even if you were successful, VCs would just give hundreds of millions of dollars to some Adam Neumann type who would put you out of business by selling the same things at a massive loss.

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

#168
post #79

our tech is so primitive compared to the ability and complexity of life. Out of a tiny part, a complex machine with the ability to grow, harvest energy and replicate comes into being. Astounding.

That's what I found incredible from these videos, specially the one in his channel that produce fruits (eggplants, peppers, etc...).

The amount of chemical synthesis (I know nothing about chemistry) from the raw materials of dirt and water and light into the crazy amount of nutrients are fibers and whatnot found in a plant is absolutely astonishing!

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

#169
post #5

Amazing video! I recently found some ginkgo seeds and have also been trying to make them grow. Some had naturally germinated, so I tried to replicate the conditions where I found those ones (covered with ~1cm of soil, in a shady spot, receiving some rain), but no luck as of now. Perhaps I should try soaking some in water in a closed container as shown in the video. (Assuming it is water, of course; a clear liquid cou…

What water are you using tap water might be okay for larger plants but might have chemicals that would kill germinating seeds.

I’ve been using water from a hosepipe, so yes, tap water. However we have also been getting an unusual amount of rain recently, so that’s been watering the plants also.

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

#170
post #89
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Bananas went (commercially) extinct decades ago. The things sold in stores today are a different fruit.

Apple bananas in Hawaii are delicious and available at the local Costco.

As you say, the “gros michel” cultivar is mostly dead commercially, although there are attempts to get a variant resistant to fungal disease.

I’d like to taste a Gros Michel some day.

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