u/ALittleBitOfToast

Woe has befallen my baby mango seedling, and I've been putting off posting this because I know some of you will want to say "I told you so!"

First and second pictures show The Blight. I noticed it about a week after my last post, and I think it was caused by moisture from my makeshift greenhouse bowl. About a third of the way up the stem was this sad brown patch, and the stem had developed an upsetting bend. There was no stability in it at all, and the little leaves were doomed. By the next morning it had given up.

I was hoping it might try again if I snipped it off below The Blight, so that's what I did. Third picture shows the current state, with no apparent attempt by the seedling to throw out new leaves. The remaining stem is fairly rigid, and aside from the dried top it's still very much alive, so I'm going to keep it where it is and just let it decide if it wants to live or die. Still a bit hopeful my little seedling can beat the odds, but not overmuch.

But it isn't all doom and gloom, because the three Kesar seeds I gently hammered open (and lightly mangled a bit but fortunately only on the party end, not the business end) have rooted! I think I've got that part of the process well figured out. Standard method is to remove the kernel from the seed case, wrap in a papertowel and leave in a shallow bowl of water in the hot water cupboard for a week, checking and changing the water every two days. Once I see a root, they're taken out of the paper towel and just left to free float in the water bowl.

One of the new Kesar kernels is showing the beginnings of a shoot, but the other two aren't quite there yet. Interestingly, the kernels of the Kesar mangoes are white, rather than green like the original Kent one, and one of the roots shown in picture five is a fun shade of pink. The pink rooted one also has an interesting fold to its kernel, which might prevent the seed from splitting open and could also stop the shoot from growing out of the split. Hopefully not, because it's the largest of the roots so I figured it would probably be a more robust seedling.

I also came across an R2E2 mango from Vietnam in the Upper Hutt PaknSave, which was novel and I hadn't seen one before so I dropped $9 on it. It was probably the least ripe mango I've ever seen and came in one of those little protective styrene sleeves which I'm not a fan of for environmental reasons, but I really just wanted the seed and I'll plant a tree to offset the waste. It sat on the windowsill for about a week with no signs of further ripening, so I cut it and tried to eat it yesterday. It wasn't great, but I can imagine they're probably way better off the tree in the middle of summer so the experience was doomed from the start really.

Last picture is all the varieties of seeds I have at the moment to show just how different they are. From left to right is Kesar, Kent and R2E2. A couple of the Kesar seeds have split themselves open along one side just from drying on the windowsill, so I'll probably pop them out and start germinating them in the hot water cupboard tomorrow.

Sorry this update is a little sad, but hopefully have better news next time. Thanks for following along on my journey, it's fun to share it with you all :)

Hello again, everyone! It's your favourite mango growing experiment!

Not a whole lot to see at the moment really, but I finally got dirt involved! I should have taken a photo of the mango seed before I planted it, but you'll just have to use your imaginations.

The roots had been growing about 3-4mm a day, so they were all about as long as my index finger. The shoot had also been growing like crazy. It's well above the height of the seed now, so the seed is completely under the soil with plenty of seedling clearance. Hopefully the mango seedling doesn't get transplant shock from suddenly encountering dirt for the first time!

I recycled a pot I'd been trying to germinate apricot kernels in, so theres still a modest chance those will spring up as well - not sure how well competition will go for the mango seedling, but I'll just pluck out the apricots and repot them elsewhere if they do decide to come to the party. I've got a couple of nectarines germinating from the same stonefruit experiment, so the more the merrier.

I found a glass bowl to dome the pot, so it's looking a bit like a UFO on the plate shelf over the stove, but I can imagine things might fog up once the pot warms up. Not sure if that will be a positive or negative thing for the mango seedling, given that they're a tropical plant, but I'll keep an eye out for rot or mold.

It's probably about time I get germinating some of the Kesar seeds, so I'm going to go gently hammer a couple of the seed pods along the thin edge this afternoon. Hopefully they'll split nicely and not just munch the kernel, but I do have 12 of them, as well as two other Kent seeds so I've got wiggle room for error.

Stay warm, it's getting chilly out there :)

For those of you who haven't met me yet, previous posts can be found on my user profile.

The root has sub-roots, and the shoot is almost trying its hand at leaves. I've promoted the water jar to a larger water pyrex dish, with a loose plan to actually plant it into dirt this weekend.

I'm a little bit more reluctant to have a pot of dirt sitting on the plate rack over my stove than I am a dish of water, mainly from a potential bugs and mess perspective. But I'll still do it anyway. I just might have to workshop a cloche of some sort that isn't made of plastic in case it touches the chimney and melts. Might see if I can find a squat glass bowl to invert over the pot, so it keeps everything contained, glasshouse style.

I've also got a good number of Kesar seeds drying out on the windowsill from my mango adventure to Yogijis in Petone, as well as another Kent seed from the supermarket last week because it was $3 ea. The Kent mango was a far less satisfying mango to eat after the almost full dozen Kesar mangoes I've eaten in the last fortnight. There's still two Kesar left, I intend to demolish them for #girldinner tonight.

I did just try to cut open one of the Kesar seed husks, and it was a much harder task than the first Kent husk had been, so I'm thinking a bit of gentle hammering might be on the cards when I want to germinate them. I'll also need to work out scaling up the water jar system, because the stove plate rack isn't enormous.

The mango seed has rooted and shooted! It's still in the shallow jar of water, but I've moved it from the hot water cupboard to on the warming shelf of our Stanley wood range. The shelf generally keeps between 20°C and about 38°C so it's a solid tropical temperature. I check and change the water every couple of days.

The seed has a bit of mold growth, but it hasn't bothered the root or shoot so I'm also not bothered by it. I'm thinking it might almost be time to get a bit of dirt involved.

I haven't started another seed yet, but the next time I'm at the supermarket I'll see if mangoes aren't an outrageous price. We're still a month or so out from Kesar season, but I'm also going to pop in to the local asian supermarket and see if they're planning to stock them this year - hopefully I can get my name on the list for a box when they come in.

In case you missed it, the [first post is here](https://www.reddit.com/r/nzgardening/comments/1sb0z8e/growing_mango_from_seed_wairarapa/)

Idk why my embed link isn't embedded, but I've given up lol