John, I am no expert, however, 4 years ago I planted 20 trees and had the same concerns. As soon as the hot weather hit, I started watering using commercial tree watering bags and filled them once a week. I believe I killed them all by OVERwatering in my heavy soil. It was devastating and had to start all over. I started thinking how everywhere else on my properties, good and bad things grow very well without my constant attention.... In my case, if no rain, I might plan on watering once a month or every 3 weeks. These babies need to do a little work too and spread their roots. There are plenty of old time orchards that I'll bet never watered-EVER. It has been suggested here that 5 gallons = 1" of rainfall. Also tipped here was drilling a couple 3/16" holes in the bottom of a 5 gal bucket and setting it next to the tree. It is dry here at the moment but I am trying to learn how to watch the trees and their growth or condition instead of just doing things out of panic because of what I read from day to day. All our soils and pressures are different from site to site. For what it's worth, I think that like others here, I have come to the conclusion, that if I want fruit, I'm going to have to learn how to watch the trees regularly and educate myself. I thought I had a the ultimate "green thumb" until I planted fruit trees. I needed to face the fact that I had to go back to the 1st grade and the beginning of the learning curve. I'm beginning to ramble. Good Luck, Chad

After many years of graduate school followed by teaching university environmental science courses I'm pretty comfortable in my understanding of how wood in the forest gets digested, and my ability to interpret observations in the field. What we are talking about here are fresh wood chips coated in wet clay if they are dug directly into the clay soil. This will seal off a good proportion of the surface area of the wood to microbial action and microbial spread. If composted a bit first the situation will be reversed and the clay lumps can get coated in fine particulates and humics, and fungal threads will be able to grow around the clay in a more or less contiguous organic environment rather than be blocked by walls of clay plaster. If you are refering to deep incorporation of organic matter down into the soil... if worms etc could break up clay through the addition of organic matter on the surface you would not see the fromation or persistance of the natural soil horizons we are dealing with (the clay fragipan in the B horizon). I would not have a clay problem because I have had grass growing on my lawn for 42 years since the house was built. This means not only 42 years of root penetration and worm activity on decaying roots, but also 42 years of grass clippings from a mulching mower. Still, there is a claypan nine inches below the surface. The yard is home to a good population of night crawlers. Sure the top nine inches is wonderfully mixed topsoil (due to worms and moles), but that doesn't do my tomatoes any good once that top nine inches dries out at the end of June and the clay blocks deep root penetration to subsurface water. Surrounding the yard is a secondary growth forest that is over thirty years old. Plenty of time for soil life to mix decaying organic material into the clay...it just hasn't happened. And here is what I have observed with brush piles sitting atop clay soil for 20 years (total decay of the brush)... a couple of inches of rich black compost over top of clay (the same with old manure piles). I have cut and developed garden plots out of both the yard and the wilderness areas. This includes deep digging down to 2-3 feet by hand to break up the clay and mix in organic matter so I am intimately aware of the soil structure, root pentration and wildlife penetration. Worms do not live in the clay layer other than for a few permanent vertical burrows, and plants do not put roots down into the clay to a great extent. In a forest, subsurface clay is broken up by penetration and decay of large woody tree roots (over centuries), not from branch and leaf litter. Invertebrate activity will mix surface material into the nooks and crannies left by decaying roots. Most tree roots are on the surface in the nutrient rich layer, with very few deep verticals, which is one reason it takes so long for deep rich soil to form. Darwin's estimates of soil turnover by earthworms as so many tonnes of soil per acre per year (in an English cultivated and/or garden setting) seems impressive until you convert it to inches, which turns out to be something like 1/8 inch of soil brought to the surface each year, so over 8 years you could get an inch of soil covering your wood chips, but even this isn't going to happen in worm depauperate clay.

It's not a Carrie. Carrie is a semi-dwarf tree. Most of the "Old" mango trees are usually Haden's or Haden seedlings as the number of varieties available in the US were fairly was limited at the time and Haden was the dominant variety. Haden is also a large tree as well. Mango trees can live for 300 years, but in most sub-tropical climates in the USA a 50 year freeze will knock a lot of them out. Mangos depending on variety are inconsistent bearers and weather plays a large part from year to year. Mango flowers are damaged or killed below 40 degrees.

Top one is the sport. Will take better photos but these are the quick ones I have on hand