Is it possible that agriculture
in the future will owe a huge debt to a single mango tree?
The
day that a botanical soap was first used on a mango tree should be
remembered as a fiesta for plants the world over, and the tree
should be preserved on permanent display.
This story is not very long,
but it is far too important to grab in a Quick Look.
If you love plants, innovation, new discoveries, food,
and/or are in any way fascinated with the concept
that we do not have to poison ourselves in order to survive,
you are going to love this story.
Then know this.
As wonderful as it is,
the saga continues,
for it has only just begun.
Mango Magnificence -- How an
experiment on a single mango tree may have sparked an
agricultural revolution.
Mike in Southeast Florida had
a problem. He loved mangoes. He even had
a mango tree. A big one. What he
did not have was much
success at growing mangoes and keeping them on the tree long enough to
ripen so that he could enjoy them.
To this day, we are still a little unsure what epiphany he had or what
kind of twisted logic made him think the way he did. But what
he did
was so radical and the results so extraordinary that the outcome has
changed the way plants will be raised far into the future.
It started with a soap. Back in 2002, a Florida based company
was perfecting a
formulation of a completely non-toxic botanically based multi-use
heavyweight liquid
degreaser that could replace most, if not all, of the toxic cleaning
chemicals that people ordinarily use around the house but that
also put themselves and their families at cumulative risk.
Knowledge
of this degreaser
product was spreading quietly, mostly
by word of mouth, where Mike happened to hear about it. Now how one
makes the major leap of logic -- and faith -- to go from a battleship
strength industrial degreasing formula to horticultural applications is
still a little fuzzy and puzzling. Maybe it was the black crud that
Mike saw covering his mango tree. He might have reasoned that a
degreaser might be strong enough to wash it off the branches, stems,
and leaves, allowing the tree to function more normally. He said at the
time that his tree was in such bad shape he felt he had nothing to lose.
He knew the liquid soap he was contemplating, powerful as it was at
really dissolving grease, was safe enough that it
posed no risk to him or anyone else if there were any overspray. Maybe
that was the math that equated applying soap on a living, growing plant
with
the idea that the plant would go on living and growing, only perhaps
better.
So he tried it. He diluted the product he had (which today
has
now been
specially
formulated to enhance its ability to help plants),
and he sprayed his tree top to bottom. Really soaked it. And
he
repeated it several times off and on over the ensuing weeks.
With nothing to go on, he was shooting instinctively toward a goal, yet
he had neither guidance nor assurance that the results would be
positive. What happened was so over the top that he could
hardly believe it.
First
off, his big tree cleaned up quite a bit. Then, his tree blossomed
earlier and better than it ever had before. It was so incredibly
covered with blooms that he had
people stopping, staring, and taking pictures as if his tree were a
major stop on a Christmas parade of homes. [Click pictures to enlarge.]
And then the fruit came. Not just scattered spots of fruit as in years
past, but LOTS and LOTS of precious mangoes hung from nearly every
branch on the tree. And they stayed on. And
they got bigger. His neighbors' did not.
Medium closeup of Mike's mango tree
covered in
fruit here.
Closer view of Mike's mango tree covered in fruit here.
[Click
here and here for more mango tree pictures
similar to Mike's.]
Then one night a no name
wind
storm came. Big storm. Big wind. As high as some
70 mph and lasted for several hours. Mike was heartsick at the thought
of all that beautiful fruit, those luscious mangoes, being blown off
the
tree and lost forever. He dreaded what he would find in the morning.
What he saw in the
daylight made him ill. Everywhere he
looked,
his neighbors' trees were devastated with virtually all the fruit
completely blown off the stems.
But HIS tree was another
story. He
couldn't tell for sure, because of the hundreds of mangoes that had
been on the tree before the storm, but it appeared that he had lost no
more than perhaps 20%! Upon closer examination as to why, he
discovered that the stems attaching the fruit on his tree were thicker
and stronger than they had been in previous years and certainly more so
than his neighbors' poor trees. And the only difference was the soap he
had used on a whim that today, across the world, is being used in
various formulations by thankful farmers and gardeners with similar
fantastic results.
To be honest, Mike and hundreds, even thousands more like him, are
still
astounded by what happens when a line of 100% non-toxic,
carcinogen-mutagen-cytogen-free, botanically based, biodegradable
liquid soap products meet seeds, bulbs, rootings, soil, and living,
growing plants. The outcomes are being called miraculous. You
would get
no argument from Mike. And, if plants really could talk, you would get
no dissent from them either. Clean plants ARE happy plants, "
. .
. because cleaner plants do better in the dirt."SM They really do.
Big
time. Ask Mike. Ask his mangoes.
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did not have was much
success at growing mangoes and keeping them on the tree long enough to
ripen so that he could enjoy them.
