I find that- those help young tree's to be strong. As long as they are above the graft..let the tree sort out who's going to win as the leader. And if your going for a Mango that's always reachable in height (maybe with ladder help) letting them branch low is the way to go.
But fertilize that extra amount of foliage. That plants leaves look yellowish. Might need iron as well as nitrogen. Other then that..and a mulch..that Mango is looking good.

Thank you for your reply Stanofh, so I will keep the branches. The leaves always look like this on this tree when they are new and turn dark green when they grow. And I had it mulched until the gardener (who my husband hired because he thinks taking care of so many trees is hard for me, and he can't because of his job schedule), removed it because my husband told him, thinking that those were fallen leaves and they were trashing the place. He's not a plants person and knows nothing about it. Oh now he wants to discard my compost pile.

Interesting that they also used the bamboo sticks as stakes in Dubai. Those sticks must be made in CHINA.

I have no idea really. They could grow them here, my friend has bamboo growing in her garden.

Unless you want to be able to walk under the tree when it grows, cutting off lower limbs above the graft is really a matter of personal choice of appearance. Grafted trees produce very early because the graft is as old/mature as the tree it came from. That's why the small trees some times bear more fruit than their size can carry. With the colour of the leaves, that often happens when it's very hot and dry for long periods, which would be your situation. In more humid weather the leaves should be a darker green. Mangos don't need a lot of fertiliser generally but trace elements do help, especially zinc. Nitrogen isn't usually recommended for them, it results in fast weak growth and less fruit. But a lot depends on what occurs naturally in your soil.

Thank you for your input Tropicbreezent. So I am sure keeping the branches. I don't know what's going on in our soil, it's just pure sand. Gotta find organic sources for the micro nutrients now, organic is not widely available, except manures and fish pellets.

This post was edited by dubai-gardener on Tue, Sep 23, 14 at 17:16

Sand has some advantages, but also some disadvantages. Some years ago I was gardening in almost pure sand. Constant watering was required but the water source was very good and there was no build up of salts. I constantly added lots of organic matter but it broke down rapidly because of the year round hot weather. I also added a lot of charcoal/biochar which is more permanent. It takes in the hundreds of thousands of years to break down but meantime retains moisture and nutrients. There's lots you can do with sand, but there's no short cuts.

I read somewhere that adding charcoal to sandy alkaline soil is not a good idea. For water retention we usually add peat moss. I looked for vermiculite but couldn't find it in agricultural grade or at affordable price otherwise. So do you think if I use charcoal for retention it would affect ph so much? I am at loss because we don't have any official guide to gardening in here or I haven't found it yet. Resources to the public are limited, all the soil amendments are available in bulk only. Like today I went and asked about organic micronutrients and was given chelated micronutrient supplement in dry form and was reassured it's organic (I needed it for my citrus trees). I get home and research and find out that it's not really organic. I went ahead and used it just to get things going. Will keep on looking for long term solutions since things do pop up here and there once in a while. Gardenweb and it's members have taught me a lot.

Some people with bad soils have found cardboard to really help as a mulch. Stops the fast evaporation from the soil..slowly adds organics. Worth a try. I mean,once a tree is planted..you can only top dress as best you can. I would stay away from hot things like manure . Charcoal from old briquettes sounds a bit toxic. Sounds like something easy to make a fatal mistake- to the tree- with.
Cardboard boxes punched with as many slits as you can make to allow water to peculate evenly through sounds doable..top dress with some straw to make look "natural"..and see how things go.

Stanofh I was thinking of straw/hay? We have cattle feed shops here and I always see lots of hay/straw there. The weather is cooling down now so it's not such a big problem now so will probably do it for the summer. Manure we use is treated and does wonderful things for the plants but we are told to stay away from it in the summer. I read about toxicity of old briquettes so I wouldn't put them on the soil, plus I never buy it anyway cuz I never succeed at starting a fire with them plus they're more expensive, so we always get real wood ones.

I remember even as a small kid people saying you never put the ash from briquets (compressed coal) onto gardens, too toxic. Charcoal is just carbon, but depending on source it can contain a variety of other things. Wood charcoal is used a lot in agriculture and greatly improves soils. When wood burns things like nitrogen and sulphur go off with the smoke. They are the acidifying side of the equation. Most of the base elements remain, they're the alkaline side of the equation. That's why fresh wood ash (charcoal and ash) is very alkaline. When biochar is produced it's usually been put through a process to neutralise it. Often that's just a simple process of composting it. Sometimes it's also soaked in organic fertilisers (mostly people who use it are into organic gardening). So if you make your own charcoal then you have to keep that in mind.

Sandy soil is usually acidic, so adding a bit of alkalinity isn't a problem. The time I was gardening in very sandy soil the pH was 5.3, great for pineapples but disaster for passionfruit and pawpaws (papaya), they'd wither and die as seedlings. So for those plants I overcame it by filling pits (very easy to dig sand) with wood ash and washing the sandy soil down through it. I got bumper crops from them. I know lots of desert soils are alkaline, due to high evaporation and low rainfall. But if you've been using a lot of organic composts/mulches you've probably got it back near to neutral. Only a soil test would give you a clear indication.

It's all a matter of "horses for courses", there's no one-fits-all solution. Pineapples can grow at a pH of 4.5, so you'd want to keep wood ash away from them. On the other hand I got great results growing cassava in soil mixed with wood ash. But biochar is pretty much neutral and can be used generally. It has good water retention, and high CEC (cation exchange capacity), two things that are important to sandy soils.

Our soil is very alkaline, in the range of 9 I believe. But like you said with compost, mulch and manures it probably is ok now. I don't have access to a test, will look around. My friend has always put wood ashes around with no harm, but then there's a lot going on in her garden. I guess I'll just be using ahes that are left over after barqeques around plants that would love it, and hope that mixed with compost and manures it will do good. I just noticed by the way that my mulberry that grows near compost bin is doing the best ( I have 3 mulberries of this type, which nurseries say is local, the other being Pakistani, the one with long fruits which is so slow). I am finally seeing results of organic gardening, and I have actually noticed that structure of the soil where I add compost is changing. Yesterday I planted some plants in a place where I grew eggplants and melons last year. When I was digging a hole I noticed the texture is not pure sand anymore and looks more like the texture I was hoping to achieve (can't explain it), like more crumbly I'd say. I am glad my organic practices are slowly paying off. Seeing neighbours gardens made me jealous, in a good way, but I would refuse to use chemicals like they do.

Mr. Dubai - I live in the desert outside Los Angeles and probably have similar soil to you, and climate. Super hot (108-110 F in summers) and mostly quite dry. And YES - straw and hay - they are GREAT for mulching and can double as a mix when you make your compost from kitchen waste, if you do that kind of thing. Put it on real thick - 6 inches is not too much.

And YES also to the Alkaline soil - I have it too. I believe all sandy soil comes from once being the bottom of the ocean or a body or water. I think my soil is quite salty as well. It does not have many nutrients to it at all. Everything has to be added.

Upon further reading of your last post, it looks like you are doing a lot of good things already and seeing results in the texture and feel of your soil. Way to go! Micronutrients may be needed at some point. I understand they might affect flavor of the fruits. I have a MahaChinook that tastes really not that good here, and it is a top tier mango on many people's tastebuds in Florida and in the Los Angeles are. I just don't know how much you'll get of them from mulches, manures and what have you....Looks like you might have to order that stuff on line and have it shipped.

Be careful if you use foliar sprays on your plants. They do burn the plant when it's put on when the temps top 100. Better to hand water fertilizer to the base of the plant at your hottest time of the year. Once is cools down a bit, these foliar sprays really do trigger growth for me! I've still got to wait another couple weeks till we start averaging temps in the lower 90's before I try foliar sprays again.....And remember - Mango trees can burn with fertilizer. I try to use a weaker strength-ed mix and use it every couple weeks. But maybe your manure additive is working good for you - just watch out for leaf burn from it - that could mean it's too strong.

Oh, I just looked at your weather averages. Your summers are very similar to mine, but your winters, January to be specific, look like you average about 75 as a high and 60 as a low. Mine are more like 70 as a high and 45 as a low. And it looks like you rarely if ever get frosts, so that's great! Lucky you.

One last question - do your mango leaves get some summer burn on the hottest days? Mine do....

GOOD LUCK - MyADog

Hello Myamberdog, it was great reading your post. Though in opposite parts of the world we do have similarities. Gardening brings people together no matter how far apart they are.
I didn't use anything in the summer, I was too afraid to burn the plants, but I fed them well before the heat set in, and a few days ago for the first time in about 3 months. We have vermicompost and the company people reassure me that it's safe to use in summer, but it was getting expensive. The guy who sold me chicken and fish pellets also said it's fine to use it in summer, but he said to do it as a side dressing, and not to mix it in the soil. But cuz most of my trees are less than 2 years old I decided not to risk it.
Now that you said that hay is good I am convinced I need to use it, thank God it's cheap.
And to answer leaves question, yes they did get summer burn, but funny it didn't stop the tree from putting on new growth. I was really worried about losing it but it managed well. I look around the neighborhood when I am driving (we don't walk here much, everything is far away) and I noticed that many plants in neighbours' gardens were stressed in the heat, and considering my past experience my plants did amazing.
When we moved to this house all we had around it was pure sand. I didn't know how challenging it would be. My previous experience was from my childhood in Russia, where you plant and nature does the rest. Needless to say I lost many trees, flowers and other plants. After almost two years I said to myself if others can do then I can do it and I was determined to have a garden in the desert. And I am finally on my way to where I'd first imagined my garden to be.
I have a question, do you use wood ashes in your garden?
By the way I don't even like to eat mangoes much, except the little sour type, that no one likes in my family, they have a sweet tooth.
And I'm a Ms. not a Mr. ;)

Oh I forgot to ask. What else are you growing successfully? I mean edible things, fruits?veggies? In cooler months we can grow most veggies, both cool and warm season. But I am yet to find what does well during the hotter months of summer, even okra and eggplant "take" a break.

Dubai is more tropical then not. Coconut palms grow there.
Aren't Melons good in hot weather? Corn?..just a whole lot of water for desert growing. Papaya..loves heat.
I think the Monbon tropical fruit tree is native to desert tropical Mexico. Should thrive on little water for you.

Yes stanofh, melons and corn grow well here. In addition to tomatoes, summer squashes, eggplants, okra, cucumbers, and even beet root, spinach, radishes, and many many things. But that's mostly during the cooler months. I had a very good harvest last year. It's during the summer that almost everything either dies or stops producing. The problem is heat waves we get. It's like we get few days with extreme temps, which really stresses the plants, it's like frost in western part of the world. But we have a pretty long growing season compared to some western countries, we can grow from September to April, and even this can be stretched to August-May. So I would really love to fill that gap with something. We have almost every fruit and veggie from all over the world in supermarkets, but the problem with them, even organic, is that they are imported from other counties on the most part, and this affects both nutrition and taste (I couldn't eat store bought tomatoes after growing my own, even kids ate them as if they were treats). Plus organic is very very expensive (and sometimes I don't see, sorry taste, a difference, and wonder if it's really organic). Of course I don't intend to have all my fruits and veggies grown, we still buy, but I'd like to grow as much as possible. For example tomatoes did so well last year that we didn't buy any during the growing season. I'm even thinking about growing under the shade cloth to extend the season so would love to research this as well.

I haven't heard of Monbon, will google it now. That's why I love this forum :)

Stanofh, does monbon has another name? Can't find any info about online.