Page 52 - FRUTAS DEL TRÓPICO

52 Frutas del trópico

years after planting. At that point, orchards may be abandoned or pushed out and replanted
with young trees that are more manageable.

Three pruning strategies have been developed to either: 1) prevent trees from getting

large through annual pruning as part of a flowering management program; 2) to reshape

intermediate sized tress to smaller, more manageable sizes; or 3) to completely rejuvenate

large trees that are no longer productive due to their size and height. This article describes

techniques recommended to address each of these issues and why each technique will maxi-

mize yields far beyond the normal life span of a mango orchard by keeping vegetative growth

in check.

To understand how each of the pruning techniques works, one must first understand the
growth habit of mango trees and the interaction of water and nitrogen on growth from first

planting to the point when they become too large for commercial use. All growth occurs in

periodic ephemeral flushes of vegetative or reproductive shoots initiating in apical or lateral

buds on terminal resting stems. The term “stems”, here refers to vegetative shoots that have

become quiescent to become the first intercalary unit at the terminal (Fig. 1) (Davenport and

Núñez-Elisea, 1997). A shoot usually produces about 12 nodes that bear leaves if it is vege-

tative, lateral inflorescences if it is reproductive, or both leaves and inflorescences within the
same nodes if it is mixed. A flush can be described as initiation of shoot growth from a group

of stems borne on linked branches.

Although mango is considered drought tolerant (Schaffer et al., 1994), adequate water is

essential for growth. Water deficits discourage initiation of flushes, which may provide the re-

quired period of rest to encourage flowering after alleviation of water stress (Nuñez-Elisea and

Davenport, 1994). When soil water content is adequate, leaf nitrogen affects the frequency of

flushes. Experience has shown that leaf nitrogen levels higher than 1.4% encourage frequent

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