I have 4 young mango trees here: a Lemon Meringue, a Gary, a Choc Anon, and a Kent. The Kent and the Lemon Meringue are the biggest at 8-10 feet tall and both set a bazillion fruits this year. The Lemon Meringue in particular started flowering in early February, because of our mild winter. Then all those cold fronts came through in March! I had at least a dozen fruits that survived the initial shedding, but the extended drought and extended cold did in all but THREE of those fruits! (I lay the blame on those cold fronts because it was immediately after each front that I would find more cast-off fruit on the ground.) I was crushed. The Kent mango is my biggest tree, easily 10 feet tall now. It brought several fruits into the 3-5 inch size, but is still shedding one or two a week, and I probably only have about 6 left -- bummer!!! Fortunately, the very uncharacteristic rains we got in the heart of our dry season (April) seem to have spurred a whole new set of bloom, and the tree is now loaded up with lots of green "pearls" of new baby fruits! Next year, especially if our winter is dry again, I'm going to try to keep water away from my Lemon Meringue mango in particular. I got to worrying about a bunch of trees due to the drought and made the mistake of watering heavily one week in January. It was within a week or two of that that the Lemon Meringue burst into bloom. I'll try not to make that mistake again. Good luck with the mangoes!

Couple of things about the carrie: For one, this year was an off year. The majority of the carrie mangoes I harvested had a different flavor from years prior. I think it has to do with the bizarre winter/spring that we had this year, being one of the hottest and driest on record. Secondly, few people know when to harvest and eat a carrie. The carrie can be harvested when almost totally green. A very slight yellowish cast at the nose of the mango indicates that it's ready to pick. Then, unlike other mangoes, you must eat it right away (within a day or two). If you let it sit any longer, it gets a funky, strong flavor. It takes some trial and error to figure out when to eat the carrie, but when eaten at the right time, it's an excellent mango that is juicy, creamy, sweet, and tangy. In most years it's my favorite mango. Jeff

Charleslou23, Nam Dok Mai's are the 2nd or 3rd largest mango export from this area, all sold as cooking mangos. (KP's are the major export and R2E2's either 2nd or 3rd.) Also in the Asian markets here they're sold as cooking mangos. And all the agricultural notes put out on them categorise them as cooking mangos. Of course, any mango can be cooked, and any mango can be eaten raw/fresh, depending on personal tastes. I also know people who eat raw green mango dipped in soy sauce. There's no accounting for taste. I did actually try a fully ripe Nam Dok Mai (off my own trees) but it didn't appeal to me. I prefer one I have called Strawberry mango, but I don't know if that is an official variety name or not. The other really good one is an unnamed variety which the previous owner of my place developed but never registered. So there's only one tree of that, at my place. But I still eat and enjoy other varieties of mango as well.

I'm no expert, but remember reading the NDM mango being one variety where fruit splitting is somewhat common? I also know that we've been in a drought for so long, and then we had that long spell of rain, I had over 12+ inches in three weeks...that can also cause Anthracnose(high humidity) and fruit splitting. I've had a couple of my Lychees fruits split(I only have a few survive the freeze)in Central Fl after all that rain. I think like Boom says...the maturity of the tree has a lot to do with the fruit not holding on. I think you will see as the tree matures and grow the tree should be more adaptable to cope from the stresses that nature throws at it? Just my humble opinion...Next year should be better for you, I'm sure. You might want to continue to treat the anthracnose, especially because we are just entering our rainy season...it will only get worse if not treated? Good luck and please post pics if you can. Terri, if you send me an email(My Page) I can send you the link...where they talk about NDM mango fruit split...I don't think I can post it here?