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PLANT CLINIC

Prune fruit and flowers to help establish a young tree

In order to get a bounty of fruit from a newly planted mango, you need to prune the flowers and fruit for the first year or two.
In order to get a bounty of fruit from a newly planted mango, you need to prune the flowers and fruit for the first year or two.

By ADRIAN HUNSBERGER

aghu@ifas.ufl.edu

Q:I planted my mango four years ago. It was about five feet tall when I bought it. Thefirst year it had fruit but no fruit since then. It looks healthy and it's growing. What is wrong with it?

A.F.,

Cutler Ridge

A: For fruit trees, you should remove flowers and all fruit the first year or two. Just prune them off. This sounds drastic but there is a good reason.

Plants use a lot of stored food reserves to flower and produce fruit. For recently planted trees, these reserves are needed for new root production to help it become established. If a young tree is allowed to bear fruit, there may not be enough stored food to develop good roots.

Adrian Hunsberger is an entomologist/horticulturist with the UF/IFAS Miami-Dade Extension office. Write to Plant Clinic, 18710 SW 288th St., Homestead, FL 33030; e-mail aghu@i

fas.ufl.edu

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