Chemical spray reduction of spontaneous fruit drop in mango to spread the harvest season.
Oosthuyse S. A.
Author Affiliation: HortResearch SA, P.O. Box 3849, Tzaneen 0850, South Africa.
: 45-46
Abstract : The chemicals, KS215, KS761 and PST101 were foliarly applied to bearing Sensation mango trees at the time of normal harvest in South Africa. The number of fruit on each tree was counted at spraying, and 13 and 23 days later. Spontaneous ripening was markedly reduced by PST101. After 13 days, 10% of the fruit had fallen from the trees treated with this chemical, whereas almost 30% of the fruit had fallen from the untreated trees. After 23 days, 24% of the fruit had fallen from the trees treated with PST101, whereas more than 50% of the fruit had fallen from the untreated trees. Further experiments are to be performed to evaluate higher concentrations and repeated applications of PST101 on a number of mango cultivars.