On The Land
25 September, 2026
Flowering not a reliable indicator for mangos
CURRENT prolific flowering trees on Mareeba-Dimbulah and Far Northern mango farms does not guarantee an expected bumper season, according to Australian Mango Industry deputy chairman and mango grower John Nucifora.
CURRENT prolific flowering trees on Mareeba-Dimbulah and Far Northern mango farms does not guarantee an expected bumper season, according to Australian Mango Industry deputy chairman and mango grower John Nucifora.
Mr Nucifora said that typically, the preceding period of much cooler weather made for an over-abundance of mango blossoms on most properties.
But the Mareeba grower said this did not mean that there would be a similar abundance of fruit.
“In past seasons, many farms have seen abundant early flowering, but as the warmer weather develops into full blown summer weather, the greater majority of flowers simply drop off,” he said.
“Quite frankly, it is still early to forecast the levels of fruit set following such widespread flowering conditions on most farms this year.”
Mr Nucifora said that in past years he had seen mango trees that were similarly fully laden with early flowers, but as the weather conditions became hotter in the summer months, there were whole blocks that did not produce a single mango.
“To make matters worse, in many ways, many local growers are facing incredible increases in crop production costs,” he said.
“Farm, chemicals, labour costs, power and transport costs to market are all increasing.
“This is having continued detrimental effects on the long-term future of many of the region’s mango farmers.
“The obvious way to combat these increasing negatives is to ensure that financial returns to mango farmers do not decrease to such a level that mango production becomes unviable.”
He said that in the future farmers might choose to withdraw from the current multi-million dollar annual cropping, and that would cost the entire agriculture industry and the financial and other benefits and employment mango production provided.
Mr Nucifora said that ever-increasing costs to farmers would have a lasting and direct impact upon the sustained viability of mango production.
