impressive!

...but I thought mangoes were self-pollinating....?

They do self pollinate from the point of view of not needing a different tree or different variety. But pollinators are necessary to get maximum fruit, whether it's day time insects, or moths at night. The commercial growers here often use pig carcasses, we get a lot of feral pigs around. They hang the meat around which brings in the carrion feeders. When these get their fill of protein they then go for their carb intake, nectar. I get a lot of butterflies around this time of year. They rest up during the heat of the day in the shelter of the garden where it's shady and humid. Morning and evening they get stuck into the mango flowers.

Wowowowowow TropicBreezeNT! My mango has never looked like that.
And that is the most visually intense pollinator story I've ever read. Pretty interesting--thanks!

You could get out there with your feather duster ;)

Dbarron, I could, but ................... I don't have a feather duster with a 5 metre handle ;)

In any case, a mango tree couldn't support the fruit if all the flowers fully developed. Just the weight would crush the limbs.

Wow!! Absolutely AMAZING blooms on your trees!!! Thanks for posting!!

I saw house flies were doing the pollination job, free, on my mangoes. I also saw honey bees on them too.

Tropicbreezent, does the field have a strong nice smell (flowers not big carcasses)?

Sapote, I haven't used carcasses, neither do my immediate neighbours (they have given up on commercial production). The other side of them are still operating commercially, but the only annoyance from them is the spraying they do. Fortunately (and wisely) the spraying is done on calm nights. It would be pointless having the wind blow the spray away. But there's not much fragrance from the flowers. The Jackfruit are flowering around the same time and their fragrance seems to overwhelm every thing else anyway.

The mangos are chugging along quite well with fruit forming up. Still a lot of flowers going.

Where to you live, TBreezent? Funny they would be forming fruit this time of year....you must be south of the Equator...

Maddy

Yes Maddy, I'm in northern Australia. Tropicbreeze(nt = Northern Territory)

A bit of an update on my mangos.

Nam Dok Mai are developing the fastest, they usually are one of the earlier ones. But they're basically a cooking mango.

The R2E2 are usually later ones, but this year they seem to be running a bit earlier than normal.

KP are the most common ones grown here, and the most popular amongst consumers.

How nice! I have zone envy--they don't grow where I am--my favorite fruit.

Why NDM is used for cooking only, and what's recipe?

Sweet-betsy, mango production is one of the major industries here, so no shortage in season.

Sapote, NDM aren't really fresh fruit quality compared to other varieties produced here. I've only got 5 or 6 trees so never a commercial quantity. When I was in the business of selling my fruit I used to look up daily market prices. NDM prices were always way down. The only plantation I've ever seen of them here is about 10 to 15 kms from me, it appears they make on producing bulk quantity. At a rough guess I'd say they have several thousand trees at least. I don't know any recipies, not really that much into cooking. But I do know some people eat them green soaked in soy sauce. I've never even been tempted to try that one.

Tropicbreeze,

So Australian NDM tastes lesser than Thailand NDM, or it's just people here are not used to the taste yet?

People who grow them here tend to be the Vietnamese, and they're into them for cooking. But I don't know Thai NDM. The only mangos that turned up here from Thailand were dried, not advertised as any particular variety. And those were about 75% sugar and 25% mango so you'd never be able to tell much about them.

Thailand (and the rest of SE Asia) are in the off season when our mangos are on, so we export a lot that way. Organic grown mangos to Europe (particularly Germany). R2E2's are popular in the "Asian Tiger Economies" for functions/conferences provided it's top quality fruit as they're very 'showy'. And the KP are in great demand. One company here was setting up with 100,000 trees mainly with a view of getting into the Chinese market. With all that junk they're selling us they've got plenty of money to buy mangos, LOL. So some people are making a lot of money from mangos, provided they can get the volume out. My little over 550 trees didn't even show up as a tiny blip on the radar, LOL.

This doesn't sound right: they are sending us junks and we are giving them good delicious mangoes to eat? someone up high must seat down and talk about this; money is only for acting as a medium and it has no value as foods or goods.

Back to NDM, I have not known any Vietnamese use mango in cooking, but they do use green mangoes for a kind of salad disk, or as condiments when serving Spring rolls (adding shredded green mango, peanut, chili and other spice to fish sauce).

Sapote, how many goods can you buy these days that aren't stamped "Made in China"?

If I was growing them commercially I'd have already been picking my mangos. This year they seem really good. Could be the drier than normal season we've been having. For myself and friends I leave picking until the fruit have ripened on the tree. Far better than any shop bought fruit. But all the freeloaders started on them a while back, Sulphur-crested White Cockatoos, Collared Lorikeets, White-cheeked Rosellas, Magpie Geese and at night the Flying Foxes. There's already a lot of part eaten fruit laying on the ground beneath the trees.