Mango cultivation in the Mediterranean area has 28 years of experience, within commercial and agronomic. Commercially was very generous due to yields and rates obtained in first 15 years. However a decade ago it has fallen in Osteen variety monoculture. Now we reconsider this position and we have to offer a range of varieties that allow us to maintain a diversified offer from August to December, in order to obtain better prices when getting an organized staggered offer. .
Regarding to cultivation techniques, we have determined many things of their climatic requirements, pruning, nutrition, fruit gathering and manipulation of flowering to obtain better fruit setting and more homogenous sizes. However, we still have a way to go.
ROOTSTOCKS BEHAVIOUR
In the eighties we introduced many mango seeds rootstocks from different sources. After a first selection, we work with the following rootstocks:
- Israel origin: 13/1, Sabre and 4/9.
- La Gomera Island origin: Gomera-1 y G-3.
- Florida (USA) origin: Turpentine.
- Dominican R. origin: Gold Drop and Banilejo.
- Mexico origin: Creoles.
Working with so many different rootstocks has helped us as experience and we have seen that most of them are polyembryonic with a quite satisfactory behaviour. There are others we have rejected, because they behave is like monoembryonic, with a vigorous growth from nascence to 5/7 years when it slows down. In this cases the stem bark goes cracking from the third year and begin having difficulty in the circulation of the sap, declining its vigor and production. These experiences have positioned us over time in choosing the three best rootstocks we have consider due to affinity between rootstock and variety, and production and longevity of the tree: Gomera-3, 13/1 and Banilejo.
Gomera-3's behaviour is perfect for possible low winter temperatures because it supports these as it were a subtropical. It is a selection obtained during the seventies from the island of La Gomera. His father has about two hundred years during which he has supported all kind of weather inclement endorsing the behavior of their offspring.