Mango

What is a mango?

The mango is one of the great fruit trees of the tropics: evergreen, broad-crowned, with leathery, lance-shaped leaves that emerge reddish or bronze and slowly turn dark green. Its home is South Asia, where it has been cultivated since ancient times. Botanically it belongs to the cashew family, the Anacardiaceae. Around the Mediterranean that family is familiar from the pistachio and from the mastic tree of the macchia.

Origin and growth

Wild and old cultivated mango trees reach 10 to 30 metres and can live for centuries. In orchards they are kept far smaller by pruning. Flowers appear in large, branched panicles at the ends of the shoots; only a small share of them sets fruit. The fruit ripens about four to five months after flowering. A mango is ripe when the stalk snaps off with a slight pull.

Requirements

Climate. The mango is a tree of the tropical lowlands, adapted to latitudes between about 25 degrees north and south. It flowers best after a dry, cooler period; rain or fog during flowering is harmful.

Cold. Young trees may be killed at -1.1 to -1.7 °C; mature trees survive about -3.9 °C for a few hours with damage to leaves and twigs. The tree does not harden off.

Water. During fruit growth in summer it needs regular water. Too much water and rich soil promote leaves at the expense of flowers.

Soil. Not demanding, provided drainage is good. Sand, gravel and limestone are all possible.

Light. Full sun.

Fruit, use and harvest

Ripe mangoes are eaten fresh, as juice, preserves or dried fruit. Green mangoes go into chutneys and pickles. The sap of the stalk and branches and the peel of unripe fruit contain irritants that can cause blistering of the skin, often with a delayed reaction. Gloves during harvest and two separate knives for peeling and slicing are a sensible routine.

In the food forest

In a food forest the mango is a canopy tree: long-lived, large and, once established, dominant. In the early years it benefits from the protection of faster plants. Bananas, pioneer shrubs and nurse trees shade it against summer sun and break the wind; they are cut back as the mango grows and their prunings go onto the ground as mulch. In the logic of syntropic agriculture it belongs to the later, long-lived stages of succession, planted at the same time as the pioneers but meant to outlast them.

Because rain during flowering is harmful, a mango in a mixed planting needs an airy position where flowers dry quickly after dew.

In the Mediterranean climate

In Spain mango growing is concentrated in the Axarquía near Málaga, where more than 4,500 hectares were planted according to recent figures from the regional government. The region also shows the limits. During the drought of 2022 and 2023 the La Viñuela reservoir fell to a historic low, irrigation was cut back sharply, and a study by the University of Bern with partners in Málaga and Princeton reports mango crop failures of up to 80 percent compared with the previous year. In Sicily some farmers began planting mangoes on small farms in the early 1980s; an economic study from the University of Palermo found them clearly more profitable there than oranges or wine grapes. On a plantation near Orosei, about two hours north of Sa Medada, mangoes have been bearing fruit for years.

What makes it work in the Mediterranean is microclimate: frost-free sites, wind shelter, good drainage and enough water in summer. The mango is not on the EU list of invasive alien species.

Propagation and care

Good varieties are grafted onto seedling rootstocks; polyembryonic seeds can also be sown directly. Young trees are protected against frost and strong sun in their first winters and summers. Pruning after harvest keeps the tree low and the crown open. Too much nitrogen promotes leaves rather than flowers.

How Terra Humana understands it

At Sa Medada the mango stands for the question of how far tropical trees can be brought to a Sardinian slope with shelter, soil cover and careful water. It is meant to grow into a long-lived canopy tree that one day shades the layers beneath it. Whether it fruits reliably here is something only the coming years will tell.