Nothing can compare to a fully-ripened, organic-grown fruit!
I am very satisfied with my Nam Dok Mai Mango tree! This is it's first debut and it has born 14 fruits! I have harvested 4 of them so far. And they are all satisfactorily sweet and juicy!
In my previous post on my Nam Dok Mai Mango Tree I said that my tree suffers from leaf gall midge disease, which was contracted while it was still in the nursery. Midges are very small flies in 1-2 mm in length. They lay eggs into the tissue of young leaves, leaving a small reddish spot which becomes swollen and soft, where the gall formation begins within 7 days and attains a diameter of 3-4 mm. Adults usually emerge from the underside of the leaf, leaving the pupal skin protruding from the emergence hole. The galls on the mango leaves will result in reduced photosynthesis, leading to leaf drop and lowered fruit production. Younger trees may die while older trees fail to recover normal growth after repeated attack. There are no examples of eradication of the insect anywhere in the world.
I experimented with my only organic way of eradicating this pest. It's only by poking the wart-like galls and then using a sharp object, usually my shears, I pierce through the spot, leaving a small hole.
My main purpose is to kill the insect in the pupal stage in order to prevent it from growing mature and infesting the whole tree. And so far I am successful! Of course this wouldn't be easy for mango trees grown in ground, as it can reach heights of 6 m or more but for container-grown trees this way is sufficient.
I don't encase the fruit with plastic bag this time, and so far my mango fruit are growing healthy and not attacked by fruit flies.
