if your backyard mango trees have little or no fruit this year, you’re not alone. This season, enjoy local mangos when you can find them. Tropical fruit experts are predicting a very lean South Florida mango harvest this season. They attribute the scarcity to a combination of factors – cold weather, rain and disease – during the winter.
“It’s one of the worst years since I’ve been doing this,” says Dr. Richard Campbell, mango expert for Ciruli Brothers and edible South Florida columnist. “It was a perfect storm of conditions.”
First, cold snaps in November and December triggered an early bloom in December, but that got burned off by disease, he says. “Then a second bloom in January was able to set, but cold weather didn’t help.” Temps dipped to 33-34 degrees in Homestead, and it got much colder west of Lake Okeechobee. Big diurnals – warm days, cool nights, low humidity – also created problems for growers, he says.
“This resulted in a lot of powdery mildew, more damaging than anthracnose. It looks like someone took a blowtorch to the trees.”
Campbell, who sells mangos with his sons as Mango Men Homestead every weekend, is now offering fresh and dried mangos, trees, jackfruit, honey and eggs. But supplies are limited, and shipping will also be affected. “We might do some grafting classes,” he says.
Elsewhere, backyard growers and small farmers in South Florida expect poor yields from their trees. At the Rare Fruit and Vegetable Council of Broward County in Southwest Ranches, David Harold and Karim Rossy say there are only about 10 percent of fruits on the 50+ mango trees on the plant society’s property. Harold and Rossy say backyard mango trees among their members are also producing far fewer fruits this season.
Wimal Suaris of Serendib Farms in the Redland estimates he’ll have about 25% of his usual crop this year. “Maha Chinook and Tommy Atkins did better than other varieties,” he notes. But his winter fruits, including caimito and custard apple, did very well. And while his lychee harvest looks to be “almost zero,” Suaris expects a banner year for avocados. “Jackfruit is also looking good,” he says.
Nature’s unpredictability is just one reason not to put all your mangos in one orchard. Suaris’ farm grows tropical fruits year round, including annonas, bananas, carambola, tamarind, dragon fruit, guava, jaboticaba, mamey sapote, longan and jaboticaba, among others. “Everyone should diversify,” says Suaris.
