My new mango plants in a grow room and greenhouse issues

love it, keep us posted!

Do the mangos need a lot of humidity to thrive?

Of course Mangoes is my top tropical fruit, many are extremely good eating, I know that, spending a few years on the Island of Java. But can’t grow them here in Arkansas, so I have to buy them every year they are in season. I do have a friend who has a smal orchard, South Florida. I don’t have to grow mangoes. On occasion I visit him during high mango season. When I leave Florida, I am good for the rest of the year.

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I suggest covering them with any clear plastic sheeting if might find at any home hardware store, get that humidity and heat in. Also suggest watering from below on the trays so the soil will wick up, this will also increase humidity and heat!

Mango don’t need high humidity. They grow in places like Phoenix and Palm Springs. They can be 115-120 with 5% humidity.

My plan for all the fruits in my greenhouse is to keep humidity as low as possible. My greenhouse isn’t really low humidity although 20% in June won’t be unusual. And at times in winter it could be 1% on warm sunny dry days.

At night the humidity is near 100%.

Right now our outdoor weather is 62F with dew point of 14F and humidity 15%. Since I’m letting the GH warm up to 92F the inside humidity could be 1-5% right now. That won’t hurt mango.

Other Tropicals such as mangosteen won’t like it that dry.

My plan to grow both mango and high chill stone fruit in the same GH is similar to what I’ve done before. The stone fruit is on the cool end near the wet wall. Mango on the warm end near the exhaust fans.

From about mid Nov until mid Febr I’ll run nights at 38-40F which is optimum chilling temp. Days will be 92 high when warm and sunny outside. When we get clouds or cold I’ll try to hold the stone fruit at 60F or below during the day which would be 70-75F for the mango.

From mid Febr until mid Nov most days in the GH will top out mid to low 90s and nights 55-70F.

I can achieve these temperatures in a 1700 sqft GH at a cost of 500-1000 a year for heating.

This should be a better environment for mango than anywhere in CA. It’s cooler and shorter season than south Florida but similar to north FL.

Our weather in winter is 75% sun and roughly 60/30F day/night. I have to cool on any sunny day or it gets warmer than 90F for 6-9 hrs.

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I didn’t know that mangos can live in such dry air.
but I read that they should grow better with high humidity.
I read that most plants, except for desert plants, cacti, or mediterranen plants… prefer higher humidity.
Why do you want to keep the humidity that low under 20%?
You are the expert, i only have a tropical box/small room and try to keep the humidity high.
is it because of plant diseases?

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I grew mangoes in my greenhouse for maybe five years. They were starting to bloom about the time I got out of the mango business (I cleared the whole greenhouse, no time to maintain it properly). They were never super happy in there, the leaves did not look fully healthy and the vigor was low. Maybe my watering level or fertilizer was off.

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Phil, MrTexas was/is on this forum of and on. He does everything first class. I have send him sions when ask, in turn he has send me boxes of fruits.
Smart guy. Knows his stuff.

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I think mangos do best with both a dry season and a monsoon season, so they can handle both for sure. There are some fungal pathogens that flourish in higher humidity, so that’s one reason to keep the humidity low.

My greenhouse has high humidity in winter and low humidity in summer, and I’m always battling mold in winter. I’ve thought about adding a dehumidifier that drains into the rain barrels. Everything seems happy in the summertime low humidity, as long as I spray it all with the hose once in awhile.

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Lower humidity reduces most foliar, tree, bloom, and fruit diseases. That’s true for both mango and stone fruit. Florida has massive mango disease issues. Mostly on bloom and fruit. CA has some of the same issues because they have a six month rainy season in winter. CA also has issues with cold wet soil in winter. In my greenhouse I’ll go months in the winter with no applied water. My soil drains well and won’t get too cold but I’ll still not water much in winter.

Maybe too humid? Low vigor is common when nights are below 60F. In FL they pray for a week or two with nights below 60F. That stimulates bloom. In CA where six months are below 60F at night all the mango want to do is bloom. Not enough vegetative growth.

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Interesting,
my train of thought was:
Mango–tropical fruit–high humidity.

the superficial search results almost all say high humidity year-round. at least in the German search engines.
it’s better to ask someone with practical experience too if you want to understand the big picture…

do you use extra CO2 in your greenhouses?

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You guys were talking about growing Mango in the green house and I was happen to be with my wife at Aldi and saw some mangos and I bought all the mangos on the shelf for my mango fix since I can’t grow them in z5

Tony

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Regarding citrus (in general) and humidity:

Because citrus favor a sunny climate, the trees should be placed in a room kept at 55 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit with a southern exposure with at least 8 hours of bright light per day. Trees also require high humidity (30-60 percent). Because most homes have an average humidity of only 15 to 20 percent, a cool mist vaporizer or humidifier may be used to raise the humidity.
from Growing Citrus Indoors // Missouri Environment and Garden News Article // Integrated Pest Management, University of Missouri

Citrus plants naturally come from warm, humid environments. They do not like the dry air that is typical indoors in the wintertime. Set up an automatic humidifier near your plant to increase the humidity level (~50%). Outdoors in Maryland’s summers, your citrus plant will receive adequate humidity naturally.
from Growing Dwarf Citrus | University of Maryland Extension

On a rainy day (most of winter!) in the PNW my indoor ghouse humidity is 60%. I do have 2 fans to reduce incidence of black mold. But I think I need a de-humidifier too!

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I hope you can eat all mangos in time before they go bad. :grin:

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I have a little at times. Mostly by producing compost in the GH. I’m composting vegetable scrapes in my grow room for the new mango trees. Probably not necessary but why not?

In my GH why not can be fungus knats. They can build to very high levels even in rotting leaves.

The other thing is even in winter I need ventilation or it gets too hot.

Also I’ve found that levels in the GH can be high even closed up if there is lots of potted plants. The media decomposes and releases CO2.

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My own greenhouse-grown mango seedling is having “issues” this year. Specifically, it has still not started growing! It started to bud out more than a month ago and has not progressed at all. The old leaves look ok still, so maybe it’s just taking a year off??


I’ve been keeping it watered pretty well, and gave it some “fruit/flower” fertilizer this spring. I’m guessing the problem is a combination of soil & air temperatures? It’s been mostly above 50°F in there at night recently, but it is planted next to the outer wall, so the root zone probably includes soil that is near the outdoor soil temperature. Here’s the greenhouse air temperature recently:

Anybody have any suggestions on how to wake this tree up? And also curious how @fruitnut’s mangoes are doing lately. Don’t think I’ve seen an update, or did I miss it in another thread?

A little off-topic, but I just got a box of mangoes from someone in FL, I’ll probably grow a few of the seeds out. Here’s the photo after I ate the two already ripe ones:

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My mango are looking pretty good. The seedlings are growing somewhat better than the already grafted trees. But all have put out 2 to 5 flushes. The GH soil is about 75-80F and has been for months. Air temperatures mostly 95/65. It’s above 90F for about 10 hours a day at this point.

I’d say yours isn’t growing because it’s too cold.

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Got 2 fruits growing on my Carrie mango. Super excited.

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If I disabled the exhaust fan, it would be well over 100 every day for at least a few hours, but I prefer to have the simplicity of turning on at 80ish and off at 70ish, even if it does keep it a little on the cool side most afternoons. Today was a pretty typical partly sunny day for this time of year, though warmer than the cool June-uary weather we’ve had recently, and you can see the slope of that curve before the fan kicks in, I assume it would get too hot pretty fast if it didn’t turn on, and the fan should turn off any minute now: