Author Topic: Seedling Mango tree thread  (Read 27567 times)

simon_grow

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6729
  • USA, San Diego, CA, Zone 10a
    • View Profile
Seedling Mango tree thread
« on: October 10, 2020, 07:03:55 PM »
Hello everyone, I’m starting this thread to track seed grown mango trees to fruition. I would like to gather information on the following:

1) Is it Polyembryonic or Monoembryonic?
2) How long did it take the seedling to fruit(include location)?
3) Growth habits of the tree, especially compared to maternal parent tree
4) Track production of the tree as it grows
5) If it’s a Polyembryonic seedling:
5a) How many sprouts did you get from the seed?
5b) Which seedling(s) did you grow out? The largest, medium, smallest or all?
5c) Which of the seedlings came out true to variety? The largest, medium, smallest or all?
5d) If you only got a single sprout from a Polyembryonic seed variety, did it turn out to be a clone or the zygotic seedling?

Edited post to include link of Mono Vs Polyembryonic mango varieties

http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=12030.0

It would be great to have pictures of the trees in different stages of growth. For Polyembryonic varieties, it would be especially important to track quality of fruit from the zygotic seedlings or off type seedlings from a Polyembryonic seed.

I’m especially interested in Polyembryonic off types because of the potential for superior fruit due to plants produced through selfing which sets the traits of that particular variety. A selfed mango flower is a flower of Sweet Tart for example, that was pollinated by itself(Sweet Tart). The resulting seedling is 100% Sweet Tart genetics but it is not a clone because there is a re arrangement of the chromosomes.

Actually, the zygotic seedling that was outcrossed with a different variety is just as interesting because of the increased genetic material incorporated by the pollinating parent. The increased genetic pool allows for a significantly higher chance that the resulting seedling will produce fruit that is much different than the maternal parent.

A Zygotic Sweet Tart seedling that was not selfed, for example, may produce fruit that tastes very different than the fruit produced from the maternal parent or a selfed seedling. This however, is highly unlikely because Sweet Tart is a variety that has certain dominant traits that have been concentrated or binned over the years.

Sweet Tart is a seedling of Zill Indochinese(ZIC) and both ZIC and Sweet Tart have that Indochinese flavor. Venus and Kathy(K3) are also descended from ZIC and they all have a similar Indochinese flavor according to my palate. Hey m not saying that they all taste the same but I can definitely detect that Indochinese flavor in all three.

We know that the Indochinese flavor is a heritable trait of ZIC seedlings but but we don’t know if it’s a simple dominant recessive trait or if it’s a lot more complicated and involves multiple alleles.

I also want to mention that we don’t have all the data. For example, how many ZIC seedlings did the Zill’s plant out. If they planted out 100 ZIC seedlings and purposefully selected the seedlings that had the Indochinese flavor, then my statements above may be completely off base.

What if Sweet Tart, Venus and Kathy were the only seedlings out of the 100 that had the Indochinese flavor?

I’m pretty much just thinking (typing) out loud now but I hope that you can see that I’m just trying to gather as much data as possible. The more data we can collect, the more accurate of a picture we can create and the better we will begin to understand and perhaps predict which seedlings may give better fruit.

Many members have asked questions such as, “which seedling from a Polyembryonic mango seed is the clone?” The literature out there sometimes can have conflicting conclusions or it may be variety specific but if we gather more data, we may be able to come up with a reasonably acceptable answer in the near future.

I know that there are already many members out there that have already planted mangos from seed and it would be great if you can add that data to this thread.

I believe Chris Wenzel from Truly Tropical has a video or two regarding seedling grown mango trees. Videos are a great option if you are so inclined.

Anyways, i hope anyone that has a seed grown mango tree can contribute to this thread. Thanks in advance!

Simon
« Last Edit: October 16, 2020, 02:34:56 PM by simon_grow »

skhan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2274
    • United States, Florida, Coral Springs, 10b
    • View Profile
    • Videos of Garden
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #1 on: October 10, 2020, 07:22:33 PM »
Simon, I don't know much beyond the genetics covered in the basic Bio so I'll leave that part up to you.

I planted a bunch of Neelam seeds (like 30) from my tree and there are a few seedlings with an Indochinese smell. (They could have either got it from Cac or Manilita)
I have Honey Kiss grafted on the same tree so I'm hoping i to detect a Gary type sap smell in one of these too.

I'm planning on planting these out (as much as I can fit.
I'm looking for other late-season contenders

Also, have to Malika seedling (not from my yard) one smell like Neelam the other has more of the typical citrus smell.

I have a few other ones I'm planning on keeping track of (cotton candy, venus etc).

I'll keep you posted.

simon_grow

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6729
  • USA, San Diego, CA, Zone 10a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #2 on: October 10, 2020, 09:55:18 PM »
Hey Sayyid, that’s awesome! Hopefully you will find some nice late season seedlings with good Indian flavors.

Here’s my first fruit from a Sweet Tart seedling that was planted in 2016. I planted one Sweet Tart seed directly into the ground, if I remember correctly, and two sprouts came up. I just let them grow and they both flowered in their third year, last year. This year, they flowered again and I removed all the blooms but one was hiding under some leaves and by the time I saw it, it was about half formed so I decided to leave it.

This fruit is from seedling number two of two. When I number my Polyembryonic seedlings, number one is the largest seedling and number two is the second largest seedling and so on. This naming convention will help me find out wether the largest or smaller seedlings are the potential clones if we can collect enough data.

This tree was planted next to a huge Pomegranate tree and has been shaded for most of the 4 years it’s been alive until I pruned the neighboring trees earlier this year. I’m not expecting much from this fruit because it still gets a lot of shade and this seedling is only about two feet tall.  This seedling #2 has a trunk diameter of approximately 3/4 inch. The fruit weighs just over 11 oz and it fell into my hands as I was checking the bottom of the fruit for insect damage. The nose of the fruit was touching the ground due to the short stature of the tree.











Simon

Mike T

  • Zone 12a
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9012
  • Cairns,Nth Qld, Australia
    • Zone 12a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #3 on: October 10, 2020, 11:34:06 PM »
There are many thousands of KP seedlings of various selections planted in my home town on public land and in yards. It seems one in ten yards or so has a KP seedling. They get big and fruit is as good as from grafted trees as they are polys. They usually take 5 years to fruit.

simon_grow

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6729
  • USA, San Diego, CA, Zone 10a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #4 on: October 11, 2020, 12:12:04 AM »
Here is the whole tree, Sweet Tart Seedling #1 is on the right and it is twice as tall (4feet) as Sweet Tart Seedling #2. Sweet Tart Seedling #1 has a trunk diameter of about 1 1/4 inches. In hindsight, I should have separated the two seedlings when they were smaller so that each seedling would have space to grow.

The way I planted them, the two trunks are growing away from each other causing the main trunks to grow at an angle. Sweet Tart Seedling #2 is leaning over so far that it has very poor form.

An alternative space saving idea is to graft the weaker seedling onto a branch of the stronger seedling. This way, you get to test out both seedlings on just one tree.





You can see how close the trunks are in this picture


Simon

fliptop

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1006
    • SWFL10a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #5 on: October 11, 2020, 06:36:54 AM »
Simon, are you looking for responses only regarding seedlings that have already fruited?

roblack

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3008
    • Miami, FL 11A
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #6 on: October 11, 2020, 09:39:43 AM »
Wonderful idea for a thread. Very curious to learn how different seedling mango trees fare and fruit.

I have a few seedlings going, but not sure what their fate shall be. All started this summer.

Found 2 Glenn (mono) volunteers. Thinking about keeping at least one, but was considering grafting onto it.

I am more curious about Ceci Love and Z20 (both mono) seedlings growing in pots. Intend to take cuttings and add them to a larger Glenn tree, but will keep the trees in pots for now.

Also, have Manalita, OS, and LZ seedlings in pots (all poly), along with a random/unkown sprout or 2.

Following and will update on my progress.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2020, 11:22:01 AM by roblack »

simon_grow

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6729
  • USA, San Diego, CA, Zone 10a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #7 on: October 11, 2020, 03:36:51 PM »
Simon, are you looking for responses only regarding seedlings that have already fruited?

No, you can use this thread to start tracking from the beginning even before they fruit.

Mike, Leo Manuel has a grafted Kensington Pride and also a seedling of KP and I can’t tell them apart. They are good fruit.

Simon

V

  • Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 13
    • Santa Barbara, CA, Zone 10a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #8 on: October 12, 2020, 02:18:19 AM »
Great thread, simon_grow!

I just planted my Sweet Tart and CAC seedlings in the ground. I put the seeds in pots almost 3 months ago.
Sweet Tart seed produced 3 seedlings. CAC seed produced 6+ seedlings.
In both cases, I planted 2 strongest seedlings in the same hole.

Sweet Tart seedlings before planting:


Sweet Tart seedlings after planting:


Future

  • The Future
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2029
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #9 on: October 12, 2020, 04:30:49 PM »
Great idea.  As mine fruit, I’ll fill in the blanks...

SHV

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 331
    • Escondido, CA
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #10 on: October 12, 2020, 05:21:00 PM »
I have a variety of seedlings planted earlier this spring and over the past 3 years.  As already discussed in this forum, I gave up planting grafted trees from FL and had much better success with seedlings and now starting to top work the 3 year olds.  Some of my one year old seedlings include Ewais, Malda, PPK, ST Maui, Ice Cream, 13-1, Sugarloaf, Peach, Kent, Ataulfo, and Ott.  Other 3-5 year old planted seedlings include Paheri, Okrung, Dasheri, Nam Tam Teem, Dot, KP, Cambodiana, and Carrie.
Other than a seedling Manila that produced terrible fruit, I had a Saigon and Not Ott fruit for me this year. Each are about 4-5 years old. The Saigon had medium fiber and unspectacular taste.  I was expecting more from this variety, however, it was the first year and a seedling.  I only allowed one mango to ripen on my Not Ott seedling and it was spectacular!  Orange tang flavor and completely fiberless. Seed was poly. Here is the growth over the past three years.

2018



2019



2020



fliptop

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1006
    • SWFL10a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #11 on: October 13, 2020, 05:15:05 PM »
Here are my Coconut Cream seedlings. Two are from a single seed from 2018 (Tropical Acres Farm).

Their baby pic:


They both went in the ground in February 2019. The larger-leafed one on the left ended up having some dieback in the ground and looked sickly, so I yanked it and threw it in a pot. It thrived and has since been returned to the earth. Here's a blurry pic of where the dieback was:


Here it is now. It's about two feet tall:


The originally smaller seedling has taken off. I pruned it at around three feet. It's since kicked out all that new growth and is around five feet tall. Its leaves are thinner than the other seedling, and thinner than Coconut Cream trees I've seen.


I do have another Coconut Cream 2019 seedling from a fruit from a mango tasting in Punta Gorda. Only one seedling emerged and it's grown well in spite of being moved around a couple times and having some sooty mold on it now:


fliptop

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1006
    • SWFL10a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #12 on: October 13, 2020, 05:25:04 PM »
My Pim Seng Mun seedlings from 2017.

I got four sprouts from a single seed. One was quite vigorous and I put it in the ground when I lived in Spring Hill and it died in the winter. I didn't mind so much, as it was very vigorous and its crushed leaves did not have the fruit smell of the parent seed. The three remaining seedlings' crushed leaves smelled like the parent fruit. I kept two and they were planted in Punta Gorda in 2019. The initially larger one stalled in growth for a while, but just put out new growth. It's got big leaves.


The other:


fliptop

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1006
    • SWFL10a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #13 on: October 13, 2020, 05:38:41 PM »
Other seedlings include 3 Baptiste (from 2 different seeds), 3 Pickering, 2 Lemon Meringue (2 different seeds), 1 Madame Francis (from a Whole Foods fruit, so it's from Haiti), and 1 Sweet Tart.

The 2018 Lemon Meringue seed provided two sprouts, one which withered away and died. The other seedling is doing well. I've not trimmed the tree; it's branched on its own:


I've planted a couple Sweet Tart seeds, which provided multiple sprouts. Oddly enough, most withered away and died. This is the only one that's thrived:


fliptop

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1006
    • SWFL10a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #14 on: October 13, 2020, 06:10:50 PM »
skhan, are you using any other characteristic besides smell in your Neelam seedling selections (namely, growth habit)?

simon_grow

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6729
  • USA, San Diego, CA, Zone 10a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #15 on: October 15, 2020, 01:48:53 AM »
Here is a Pina Colada seedling grafted onto a mature rootstock. If you’ve never had Pina Colada, you’re missing out. It’s right up there with Sweet Tart in terms of explosive flavor and perfect balance of sweet and tart. Pina Colada is absolutely incredible.

The issue with Pina Colada is that it is a slow grower in SoCal. Several years ago, I planted out about 30-50 Pina Colada seeds and grew them out. Many of them died within the first year, they seem susceptible to some fungal disease in my are a that affects them more than other seedlings. After allowing Mother Nature to weed out the weaker seedlings, I was left with about 5 plants that survived outside unprotected. These seedlings were more vigorous than the ones that died out so vigor may have a positive correlation with survivability at least in my climate.

Several of these trees are planted out at Brads orchard and I kept one in a pot at my house. About three months ago, I took a a scion from my Pina Colada seedling and grafted it onto an established rootstock. This Pina Colada seedling was planted from seed on 07/27/18 and I grafted the scion onto my established rootstock on 07/04/20. After grafting, this scion has flushed 2-3 times already.

The flushes have maintained the short internode distance between leaves that the real Pina Colada seems to have. The grafted Pina Colada Seedling is growing so much faster when grafted onto a strong established rootstock.




For those growers that are short on space, multigrafting multiple seedlings onto a larger rootstock can save you space and probably give you much faster growth than seedlings growing on their own rootstock. Multigraft trees can become difficult to track however so think before you do this and make sure you tag your grafts.

Simon

shaneatwell

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1324
    • California, San Diego, sunset 23 and 18
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #16 on: October 15, 2020, 11:25:40 AM »
Interesting thread Simon.

I'd like to expand on one of the genetic issues.

I’m especially interested in Polyembryonic off types because of the potential for superior fruit due to plants produced through selfing which sets the traits of that particular variety. A selfed mango flower is a flower of Sweet Tart for example, that was pollinated by itself(Sweet Tart). The resulting seedling is 100% Sweet Tart genetics but it is not a clone because there is a re arrangement of the chromosomes.

To be clear, its not only re-arrangement of chromosomes, where the arms of the chromosome arms inherited from the grandparents cross over and you get patchwork chromosomes mixing up grandmas and grandpas genes on a single arm. There's also the fact that the child plants can have either arm paired with itself or paired with its opposite. Which gives rise to the phenomenon that with regard to any particular gene the child can inherit one grandma copy plus one grandpa copy, or both grandmas copies, or both grandpas. So if the, just to have fun, 'fiberless' gene A is dominant and comes from grandma, and A' from grandpa but has a bit of fiber then the self cross child can be AA, or AA' or A'A'. The second of these is genetically equivalent to the parent plant, but the first and last effectively loses one of the grandparent's genes. By observation you would keep either AA or AA' variants as both being fiberless, but reject A'A' for having fiber. But you wouldn't know if you had AA or AA'. At some generation it would go to AA by chance (1/3 of the selectants are AA) and become fixed because A' would no longer be in the genetics anywhere. After that A would always pair with A.

To put it another way, 100% of the child's genetics comes from the self-crossed parent, but 100% of the parent's genetics is NOT preserved in the child. There's always gene variants being lost (going homozygous to one of the grandparent's versions). That's what 'sets' the traits. Eventually it happens to all the genes (after 7 generations of selecting for desired characteristics is the rule of thumb). At that point instead of having AA'/BB'/CC'/DD' etc., you have AA/BB/CC/DD with largely identical offspring and the only diversity is created from rarer genetic events.

Anyway, its a fascinating aspect of plant breeding that isn't always clear. 


Shane

fruit4me

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 412
    • USA, CA/LOS ANGELES,SAN GABRIEL
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #17 on: October 15, 2020, 12:53:14 PM »
Guava seed has 5 sprouts coming out


Seed from this guava mango


At first, thought  seed was mono










« Last Edit: October 15, 2020, 01:01:25 PM by fruit4me »

chris1

  • Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 127
    • Brevard county, Florida zone 9b
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #18 on: October 15, 2020, 06:29:02 PM »
I will be following this. Cool idea for a thread. Seems like a lot of people have had success getting fruit a lot sooner than many say. I tend to hear 5-10 years as the standard comment but seems to be a lot faster. I planted a bunch of various seedlings in pots. I will be using them to see if I can learn to graft though. I likely won’t grow them out. I also would be willing to give some away to anyone that wanted to grow them out. 

simon_grow

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6729
  • USA, San Diego, CA, Zone 10a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #19 on: October 16, 2020, 02:32:36 PM »
Interesting thread Simon.

I'd like to expand on one of the genetic issues.

I’m especially interested in Polyembryonic off types because of the potential for superior fruit due to plants produced through selfing which sets the traits of that particular variety. A selfed mango flower is a flower of Sweet Tart for example, that was pollinated by itself(Sweet Tart). The resulting seedling is 100% Sweet Tart genetics but it is not a clone because there is a re arrangement of the chromosomes.

To be clear, its not only re-arrangement of chromosomes, where the arms of the chromosome arms inherited from the grandparents cross over and you get patchwork chromosomes mixing up grandmas and grandpas genes on a single arm. There's also the fact that the child plants can have either arm paired with itself or paired with its opposite. Which gives rise to the phenomenon that with regard to any particular gene the child can inherit one grandma copy plus one grandpa copy, or both grandmas copies, or both grandpas. So if the, just to have fun, 'fiberless' gene A is dominant and comes from grandma, and A' from grandpa but has a bit of fiber then the self cross child can be AA, or AA' or A'A'. The second of these is genetically equivalent to the parent plant, but the first and last effectively loses one of the grandparent's genes. By observation you would keep either AA or AA' variants as both being fiberless, but reject A'A' for having fiber. But you wouldn't know if you had AA or AA'. At some generation it would go to AA by chance (1/3 of the selectants are AA) and become fixed because A' would no longer be in the genetics anywhere. After that A would always pair with A.

To put it another way, 100% of the child's genetics comes from the self-crossed parent, but 100% of the parent's genetics is NOT preserved in the child. There's always gene variants being lost (going homozygous to one of the grandparent's versions). That's what 'sets' the traits. Eventually it happens to all the genes (after 7 generations of selecting for desired characteristics is the rule of thumb). At that point instead of having AA'/BB'/CC'/DD' etc., you have AA/BB/CC/DD with largely identical offspring and the only diversity is created from rarer genetic events.

Anyway, its a fascinating aspect of plant breeding that isn't always clear.

Hey Shane, thanks for diving in deeper in regards to mango genetics. I haven’t paid much attention to the mango genome but but your explanation makes sense. When a mango is selfed, it can have any rearrangement of the genes that is already encoded in the parents genetics which will include the parents parent which will be different for both the paternal and maternal parent.

I agree that some traits can be multi allelic traits which requires multiple copies of specific genes which is much more complicated than a simple dominant recessive trait.

Simon

simon_grow

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6729
  • USA, San Diego, CA, Zone 10a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #20 on: October 16, 2020, 02:40:44 PM »
Guava seed has 5 sprouts coming out


Seed from this guava mango


At first, thought  seed was mono











Hey Max, did the fruit taste like Guava? This thread has people saying that it’s monoembryonic and polyembryonic. Perhaps this is one of those varieties that is Polyembryonic but sometimes throws mono seeds? http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=15929.msg368142#msg368142

Simon

roblack

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3008
    • Miami, FL 11A
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #21 on: October 16, 2020, 02:41:26 PM »
...so, people growing polyembryonic seeds of named mangoes DO NOT actually have the exact same fruit tree as the named cultivars.

fruit4me

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 412
    • USA, CA/LOS ANGELES,SAN GABRIEL
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #22 on: October 16, 2020, 05:24:49 PM »
@Simon
I did not taste any guava flavor. To me, the flavor reminds me of the kesar mango. Love this tree for the Indian flavor profile and the vigorous growth it has. Flowers and sets fruit very well too. If your into kesars and Alponsos, I think this is a very good alternative for growing in SoCal.

Max

Future

  • The Future
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2029
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #23 on: October 16, 2020, 05:36:05 PM »
Guava seed has 5 sprouts coming out


Seed from this guava mango


At first, thought  seed was mono











It is mono. With paradoxical multiple sprouts.  It happens

fliptop

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1006
    • SWFL10a
    • View Profile
Re: Seedling Mango tree thread
« Reply #24 on: October 16, 2020, 07:38:13 PM »
...so, people growing polyembryonic seeds of named mangoes DO NOT actually have the exact same fruit tree as the named cultivars.

That's what I was thinking after reading shaneatwell's post, roblack. I guess I'm waiting to see how close the polyembryonic seedlings' fruits are to the parent or if they're different enough to get a new name.