Carbohydrate reserve partitioning and reproductive decline following defoliation induced carbon source limitation in mango (Mangifera indica).
Rossouw GC, Tamelini BR, Wright C, Jones S, Dickinson G
Fruit Tree Management
Every time you prune a mango hard or a storm strips its canopy at the wrong moment, the tree may sacrifice next year's fruiting potential to survive — understanding that timing matters as much as how much you cut can help home growers protect back-to-back harvests.
Mango trees keep hidden stores of sugar and starch tucked away in their trunks, branches, and roots — a kind of emergency fuel tank. When researchers stripped away almost every leaf while fruit was growing, the trees cracked open those reserves to keep the fruit alive. The fruit survived but shrank, and the next year fewer trees fruited at all, showing that emptying those reserves once can set a tree back for seasons to come.
Key Findings
Near-complete defoliation (retaining only 40 leaves, under 0.5% of normal) during rapid fruit growth reduced whole-tree fruit carbohydrate content to one-third of control trees by the end of the first season.
In the second season after defoliation, carbohydrate concentrations in fruit recovered to normal levels, but fewer trees fruited and overall yields remained lower, confirming a lasting reproductive impact beyond the immediate stress year.
Organ-specific reserve roles were hierarchical: trunks and coarse roots acted as long-term starch banks (deeply depleted then strongly rebuilt), branches and medium roots as intermediate buffers, and shoots, leaves, and pedicels as rapid short-term sugar stores.
chevron_right Technical Summary
When mango trees lose nearly all their leaves during fruit development, they drain stored sugars and starch from their trunks and roots to keep fruit growing — but the following season's harvest still suffers, revealing a lasting reproductive cost to severe leaf loss.
Abstract Preview
Non-structural carbohydrate (NSC) reserves can support fruit development and buffer source-sink imbalances in fruit trees, yet their organ-specific contributions remain poorly understood in mango (...
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A mango is an edible stone fruit produced by the tropical tree Mangifera indica. It originated in the northeastern part of the Indian subcontinent, in what is now Bangladesh, northeastern India and Myanmar. M. indica has been cultivated in South and Southeast Asia since ancient times, resulting i...