What to Do About Early Blooming in Mango? Latest Preventive Measures Explained

Mango is one of the famous tropical fruits. It consumes a large amount of water and nutrients during growth. If it encounters prolonged drought, combined with improper water and fertilizer management, its flower buds can differentiate extremely quickly, leading to early blooming. This prevents the flowers from pollinating normally, resulting in a low fruit-setting rate and affecting yield. So how can early blooming in mango be prevented? Let's take a look at the details.

1. Timely pruning

After the fruit matures and is harvested, promptly prune away the old, weak, diseased and pest-damaged branches as well as the dense branches of the tree. At the same time, also cut off the remaining fruit stalks and strengthen orchard cleanup. This can increase the ventilation and light penetration of the plant, reduce unnecessary nutrient consumption, and also reduce the harm of pests and diseases. Most importantly, it can delay flower bud germination and prevent early blooming.

2. Apply sufficient base fertilizer

After flowering and fruiting, mango consumes a large amount of nutrients, and the plant is relatively weak at this time, making it highly susceptible to invasion and infection by pests and diseases. Therefore, sufficient base fertilizer should be applied after harvest. The amount of base fertilizer applied should account for more than 80% of the annual fertilization amount, so that the plant can recover quickly and meet the needs of growth. Fertilization is mainly based on organic fertilizer and nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Dig a ring-shaped trench around the plant, apply 50 kg of organic fertilizer and 10 kg of nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium compound fertilizer per plant, and then cover it with soil.

3. Drought prevention

Mango prefers a humid environment during growth and is not cold-tolerant and afraid of waterlogging. If it encounters prolonged drought, flower bud differentiation will accelerate, buds and flowers will emerge and bloom ahead of time, resulting in early blooming. Therefore, in order to avoid early blooming caused by drought, irrigation should be carried out in time during drought periods to maintain soil moisture and keep a certain level of humidity. At the same time, drainage and irrigation ditches should also be opened to prevent heavy rain. After watering, the soil can be loosened to increase permeability, so as to avoid difficulty in root respiration that leads to decreased absorption capacity.

4. Top grafting to change varieties

For varieties that grow relatively quickly under high-temperature and drought conditions and tend to sprout buds and bloom prematurely, adopt the measure of top grafting to change varieties, replacing the seeds with late-maturing varieties, so as to delay the flowering and pollination period of the plant, avoid the low-temperature and rainy period, and prevent early blooming.

5. Regulate the flowering period

For plants that have already shown early blooming, remove the early-emerging inflorescences so that they bloom again. This can also delay the flowering period to a certain extent and stagger that period. Flower removal is generally carried out when the inflorescence grows to 8-10 cm. At this time, the removed inflorescence is not fully mature and pollination will not occur. There is also a certain limit to the number of times flowers can be removed. Removing them too many times will cause the flowering vigor to become too weak, thereby losing the ability to pollinate.

In modern cultivation, chemicals can be used to delay inflorescence growth. When the plant has already begun flower bud differentiation, spray paclobutrazol solution or ethephon at this time, once every ten days to half a month, for 2-3 consecutive times. The flower control effect is excellent.

The above are preventive measures for early blooming in mango. We hope they can help you. To learn more about mango cultivation knowledge, please stay tuned to us.