Springfels

The Springfels mango was selected by Charles Springfels of West Palm Beach, FL. He attempted to hybridize the 'Haden' mango with the 'Sandersha' (aka Totapuri or Bangalora), and named one of the resulting seedlings the "Springfels Superior", later shortened to Springfels. It was the third well-known mango selection to be made in Florida after Haden and Brooks, and was trialed commercially but quickly fell out of favor due to its excessive size, among other reasons.

It survided for many decades in the nursery trade as a backyard tree, however. It is rarely found in the industry today, but old Springfels trees can still be found in old south Florida yards. To this day An old Springfels tree still grows in the backyard at Charles Springfels former-residence in West Palm Beach.

 

The fruit are very large (typically weighing several pounds)  oval-oblong in shape, yellow at maturity with beautiful pink/red coloring on sun-exposed portions. The flesh is soft, with medium fiber content, very juicy, containing a monoembryonic seed. The flavor is rich and sweet, in the classic-acidic group, and is very often likened to pineapple.  The fruit are very prone to internal breakdown/uneven ripening and should be ripened off the tree to help prevent this.

 

The trees are low-medium vigor growers with spreading habit. They tend to be highly productive near the coast, but struggle to fruit in the interior due to fungal problems. The fruit typically mature from July to August.

 

We have recently discovered that Springfels is highly prone to bacterial black spot and rot fungi, and do not recommend its planting in southeast Florida anymore for this reason. At the end of the 2018 season we cut our Springfels tree to a stump and top worked it. This stump died a few years later and the variety was lost from our collection until recent years when we grafted some new trees.