First flower on my 5 year old grafted Mangosteen

[Chandramohan]

I just found one flower on my 5 year old grafted Mangosteen plant.

[sildanani]

Wow, nice tree! That saved you a lot of years of waiting! Is it actually grafted on to mangosteen rootstock, or another garcinia?

[Chandramohan]

It is grafted on to Mangosteen rootstock.

[Jsvand5]

Nice. Gives me hope that mine may actually flower one day.

[cbss_daviefl]

The tree is nicely shaped too.  I have seen grafted mangosteen that are very contorted.

[TropicalFruitHunters]

Yes...very nice job and tree.  Growing a lot taller than most grafted mangosteens I've seen.  Most are very short and compact.  Bet you wished you had a dozen more!! 

[Chandramohan]

Thanks everybody. I have two more in the ground. I straightened out mine after the second set of leaves came out skewed, by tying it to a post planted close to the stem. I had stopped making grafts, after all the information on the Internet saying it would be still about 9 years before fruiting. Now I am going to graft more seedlings!!

[Tropicaliste]

I wish I had a dozen too, Jay.  Lol

Thanks for sharing the information. It does make you wonder why growers in Asia would bother with grafted if there wasn't a benefit. I suppose this post supports that in fact there is a benefit. Maybe it's not typical, but maybe it is, at least there.

[Roy-Ind]

Wonderful
Great news for me
Roy

[Delvi83]

I knew Mangostan needs time to flower.....even in its environment !!

Congrats

[fruitlovers]

Congratulations. You actually have a fruit already starting to form in center of that flower.

[LivingParadise]

Congratulations!

[Chandramohan]

This year there are more than 50 flowers!!

[BestDay]

Really cool. I'm jealous.

Bill

[Mike T]

8 years is typical for a healthy tree and the range is 5 to 12 but there are exceptions. My two trees took 5 and 6 years to open their accounts but were encouraged by extra potash and micronutrients. Ironically for an asexually reproducing species there is a lot of genetic diversity and some are more precocious than others. Whether the diversity has happened by mutation or by there being numerous original hybridisation events, who knows.
Grafting doesn't usually work so well so this is very positive. Excessive shooting below the graft, a lack of rootstock vigour that makes it bend over and not support the top and delayed rejection of scion are some of the problems experienced. There was a lot of grafting done in my area a few years ago and a lack of success meant it is rarely done any more. It was done on a big scale in thaiand a few years ago and I don't know how that turned out. They used very young plants.

[Chandramohan]

Two years back, I grafted a few plants, but seeing the availabe information on the internet, I stopped grafting, planted only two of the plants and gave away the rest.I graft on two year old seedlings and once they are planted in the ground, stake and tie them to prevent the plants from bending. The two grafts are growing well. After my 5 year old flowered last year, I grafted 8 more,being limited due to lack of seedlings. I shall post a photo of my tree once I am back home on May 18th.

[Chandramohan]

A photo of my tree after thinning the fruits.

Mangosteen grafted on hombroniana rootstock, 15 years old.