Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 5.5
Mango fruit
(Singh
1960
). The Phoenicians first and later the Arabs seem to have been respon-
sible for mango distribution through East Africa arriving to Madagascar through
migration from the Indian subcontinent and surrounding areas around the tenth
Century (De Laroussilhe
1980
). Dispersal to other tropical zones was rather slow
and had to wait till the arrival of Spanish and Portuguese sailors who, as in the
case of the papaya, distributed it around the world after the sixteenth century
(Galán Saúco and Cubero
2011
).
Edaphoclimatic Requirements for Production
Soil Requirements
Mango can be considered as the hardiest tropical fruit tree withstanding a wide
range of a sandy-lime or sandy-clay soil types. The mango has been successfully
planted in soils as shallow as 40 cm in the rocky and calcareous soils of southern
Florida, in the USA, to terraces with only 80 cm of soil depth in the Canary Islands
(Galán Saúco
2009
). The mango is also cultivated in Israel in calcareous (> 38 %
CaCO
3
) and very sandy soils, with scarce organic content (0.3 %), and a low cation
exchange capacity (CEC 7-13 mmol/100 g soil) with low water holding capacity
(Whiley and Schaffers
1997
). Whereas the soil pH of these soils are as high as 8.7,
the mango prefers soil pH of between 5.5 and 7.0.
Values of electrical conductivity (EC) higher than 1.4 dS/m may cause salinity
problems for mango, although there are some rootstocks like 13-1 that can with-
stand salinity levels as high as 3.1 dS/m in the irrigation water when under drip
irrigation and with an appropriate water leaching program (Kadman et al.
1976
)
.
Climatic Requirements
The mango is well adapted to hot tropical conditions, but the ideal temperature
