My concern with doing the top work around that time most comes from the plant's energy reserves and dormancy.
The plant will be directing a lot of energy to the fruits, so when you do you big cut in July/August then it may take a while for the plant to send out new chutes.
So grafting may have to be done during dormancy.
Also, it a good idea to leave as many mature leaves on during dormancy so the plant can recover its depleted energy reserves.
A possible compromise would be to do the top working branch by branch so you always have something capable of fruiting.
I've been in this position before...its a hard choice.
Thanks a lot for the advice!
Ya, I am very excited about getting some fruit this year. The other issue is that the trees that the bud wood are coming from are also blooming now and I understand that taking bud wood during the blooming season is not ideal either. So if that's the case, I'm looking at June/July before I can do any work. Perhaps a solution is simply to change the tree I'm going to work on. I do have one that isn't blooming yet, and isn't showing much interest in budding either. Do you think it would be a better candidate for the chop?
In either case, you'll be gathering budwood after flower stops (May-ish for the ones you top now, August if you top in July.)
This is if you stick to grafting on the soft new shoot and not bark grafting.
Most of my trees in my yard aren't producing yet so I understand where you're coming from.
I'd leave my fruiting trees intact and start topworking all the non fruiting ones ASAP.
This way you will still have some homegrown mangos during the season.