THE TIMING OF PRUNING AFFECTS FLUSH DEVELOPMENT AND FLOWERING IN 'HONEY GOLD' MANGO

Mango grows by recurrent flushes that are either vegetative or floral. Floral induction in the subtropics occurs when a new flush begins during a period of cool weather. We undertook a trial on 'Honey Gold' mango in subtropical Australia in which we tip pruned (decapitated the branches of) trees on nine occasions from February to April 2005, and observed the effect of the time of pruning on flush development, spring flowering and final fruit number. Trees pruned at different times had different phases of flush development and significantly different flowering intensities. The proportion of terminals flowering decreased linearly as pruning was delayed from February through to April. Fruit number at harvest increased linearly with flowering intensity. Thus the timing of post harvest pruning is important to mango production. Further research is underway.