Mango Glossary

Walter Zill is a Florida mango grower associated with the selection and propagation of mangoes, including the selection known as Pickering. His work belongs to the broader history of the Zill family's involvement with mango growing in South Florida. A named seedling selection becomes dependable nursery material through identification and vegetative propagation, not simply by sharing a family name. When researching this history, distinguish the person, the cultivar, and other family members rather than transferring a cultivar's growth or disease traits to every Zill selection.

View the Pickering variety

Wayne Pickering, widely known in the mango community as The Mango Man, was a nutrition educator and fruit enthusiast whose name is associated with the Pickering mango selected by Walter Zill. The person and the cultivar are related historically but are not interchangeable subjects: claims about the tree's performance should be checked against cultivar information rather than inferred from a biography. Mango Database's tribute discusses his community connection. Personal recollections should be identified as recollections, without treating an unverified quotation or date as an established scientific fact.

Read the Mango Database tribute