Author Topic: Growing Mango trees in Southern California  (Read 179975 times)

CGP3

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #175 on: April 15, 2018, 08:14:17 PM »
I picked up a glenn and Haden last week that came from la Verne. I’ll let you know how they turn out.

Rob P

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #176 on: May 15, 2018, 09:17:56 AM »
Just a thought about selecting mango varieties for So.cal. One way to make it easier for the average gardener that does not require grafting skills, would be to select vigorous polyembryonic  varieties that are suited to your soils. To this day over half of the Australian commercial production of mangoes is based on the polyembryonic variety "Kensington Pride" which are produced from seedling trees! . This variety has the drawback of being very vigorous and orchards in tropical Australia use mechanised pruners to keep them manageable, but this would not be an issue in your climate. In fact a variety with lots of vigor would would be perfect for your cooler climate.

BestDay

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #177 on: May 15, 2018, 10:16:09 AM »
I have actually been giving this same idea a lot of thought recently. My mangoes have been in the ground for about two years. The varieties described as vigorous upright growers definately look better. They are less droopy and more filled in. My Edward and Ice Cream are flat out ugly. Lemon Zest and Sweet Tart look great.

Bill

simon_grow

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #178 on: May 15, 2018, 06:47:32 PM »
Just a thought about selecting mango varieties for So.cal. One way to make it easier for the average gardener that does not require grafting skills, would be to select vigorous polyembryonic  varieties that are suited to your soils. To this day over half of the Australian commercial production of mangoes is based on the polyembryonic variety "Kensington Pride" which are produced from seedling trees! . This variety has the drawback of being very vigorous and orchards in tropical Australia use mechanised pruners to keep them manageable, but this would not be an issue in your climate. In fact a variety with lots of vigor would would be perfect for your cooler climate.

Yes I absolutely agree, planting seeds from polyembryonic varieties is the best way to get a big tree that is less droopy and less likely to flower in its first several years which gives it time to establish and send out roots and shoots.

Simon

Dylan SB

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #179 on: May 16, 2018, 02:28:46 AM »
How long will it take for monembrianic mangoes to bloom in California from seed?  I have a seed that I planted that has somehow survived the last three winters.  It is maybe 3 feet tall at best.  I had previously gotten a Manilla tree to produce but had removed it after several years of not producing any fruit to what I now know as powdery mildew.

simon_grow

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #180 on: May 16, 2018, 08:24:45 AM »
Monoembryonic and polyembryonic Mango seedlings can start blooming at a very early age due to cold stimulus. I had a Kent seedling bloom at about three years old although I believe 4-6 years is more common. The size and health of the tree can also affect when it blooms. Trees that are stressed may bloom earlier.

Simon

Dylan SB

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #181 on: May 20, 2018, 09:23:37 PM »
Simon_Grow,

Thanks for the information.  Here is my small tree that has survived the last three winters.  It gets some protection from the Avocado that I grew from seed behind it. 





Rob P

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #182 on: May 20, 2018, 11:41:58 PM »
Kensington Pride is a vigorous polyembrionic variety that could be tried, is has a very nice distinctive flavor, it does have a small amount of fiber. This variety is used a lot in breeding here in Australia to incorporate some of its flavor to the progeny as it is so familiar to the locals. R2E2 is a very popular variety which is a cross of KP and Kent for memory, it is a very large fruit with little fiber. Being a cross of a monoembrionic and a polyembrionic parent about half of the fruit contain a polyembionic seed, so these seed, can also be tried. Banana-1 is another Australian polyembionic selection that could be tried as well as one called Strawberry, I am happy send seed of all these if required as long as you arrange your own import permits. There are two more polyembrionic varieties that could be tried that are available in the US, one is Nam Doc Mai and the other is Early Gold, this last one is said to have moderate/high anthracnose tolerance.

spoons

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #183 on: July 30, 2018, 01:58:17 PM »
After reading most of the entire thread, I've come to the conclusion that growing mango cultivars/varieties in San Diego are best done by grafting to a mature tree or top working rather than grafting to a young seedling rootstock, which is what I was originally planning on doing.

At this point I have over 2 dozen Ataulfo/Manila seedlings in 1 gallon pots and they are sprouting and growing.  I was really hoping to purchase a bunch of scions to graft them onto these younger rootstocks but based on what i've read and the 2 grafted trees i've purchased a couple years ago, i'm going to have to agree.  Neither of the grafted trees I have can support itself without a stake or 3.

The one tree I have has about half a dozen mangos growing but the plant itself is only about 5' tall.

I may graft one or two but I think i'm going to invest in the long haul and focus on growing these seedlings hopefully in a vegetative state for the next few years.  Gonna be tough to invest the time in watering with no fruits in sight. :(

Thank you Simon for posting this very valuable information.  Saves the Socal gardener lots of wasted time, effort and money from doing it the wrong way.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2018, 02:00:25 PM by spoons »

simon_grow

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #184 on: July 30, 2018, 03:06:16 PM »
Spoons, the other option which is even easier is to plant seeds from Good Polyembryonic varieties so that you have a seedling that will grow vegetatively for several years before flowering. The benefit of this is that you don’t have to graft.

Simon

philek9

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #185 on: August 01, 2018, 01:52:16 PM »
Spoons, the other option which is even easier is to plant seeds from Good Polyembryonic varieties so that you have a seedling that will grow vegetatively for several years before flowering. The benefit of this is that you don’t have to graft.

Simon

Simon, where can one purchase such seeds? 

simon_grow

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #186 on: August 03, 2018, 11:30:24 AM »
You can post a want add on the buy/sell forum.

Simon

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #187 on: December 10, 2018, 07:33:48 PM »
Spoons, the other option which is even easier is to plant seeds from Good Polyembryonic varieties so that you have a seedling that will grow vegetatively for several years before flowering. The benefit of this is that you don’t have to graft.

Simon

Simon, where can one purchase such seeds?

First of all I want to say big thank you for starting this thread and all the posts and comments Simon, perhaps I should have looked hear before making my purchase, I have placed an order for two mango trees (from Florida) those should arrive in the coming days or weeks, and I was planning to keep them indoor until the winter season is over.

I too live in San Diego so you can imagine my excitement to see those articles and reasearch were written/done by someone local. I plan to read it all in full, but there are a lot of information to catch up with.  My goal is to graft back ups of those trees on two Lavern Manilla, so my question and apologies if it is already answered, where do you recommend I get two good sized root stocks locally?
 

Oolie

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #188 on: December 10, 2018, 07:40:32 PM »
Simon has posted that pretty much all over the place. You can sometimes pick up La Verne Manila at your local hardware megastore. They don't always have them, but they do re-stock often, so check in frequently, if they carry La Verne (check the tags) and don't have the Manila seedlings in stock, place an order with them.

Spoons, the other option which is even easier is to plant seeds from Good Polyembryonic varieties so that you have a seedling that will grow vegetatively for several years before flowering. The benefit of this is that you don’t have to graft.

Simon

Simon, where can one purchase such seeds?

First of all I want to say big thank you for starting this thread and all the posts and comments Simon, perhaps I should have looked hear before making my purchase, I have placed an order for two mango trees (from Florida) those should arrive in the coming days or weeks, and I was planning to keep them indoor until the winter season is over.

I too live in San Diego so you can imagine my excitement to see those articles and reasearch were written/done by someone local. I plan to read it all in full, but there are a lot of information to catch up with.  My goal is to graft back ups of those trees on two Lavern Manilla, so my question and apologies if it is already answered, where do you recommend I get two good sized root stocks locally?

ManVFruit

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #189 on: December 10, 2018, 07:46:46 PM »
Thanks, I read as much as I can during my lunch hour and perhaps skimmed over this information. I will check with some of my local nurseries and post in the trade/sale thread as well, I would rather help a fellow member if there are any selling root stocks locally.

Thanks for taking time to reply.

hawkfish007

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #190 on: December 10, 2018, 10:00:04 PM »
Thanks, I read as much as I can during my lunch hour and perhaps skimmed over this information. I will check with some of my local nurseries and post in the trade/sale thread as well, I would rather help a fellow member if there are any selling root stocks locally.

Thanks for taking time to reply.

I picked up 2 Manila seedlings for $35 each last time I was at Mimosa LA. They had quite a few in stock, seedlings were 4-5’ high.

ManVFruit

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #191 on: December 10, 2018, 10:27:25 PM »
Thanks for the update, that is a place I'd like to visit one day, sadly I am bout 2.5 to 3 hours drive south of that place, I will visit Exotica this weekend see what they have. :-)

simon_grow

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #192 on: December 11, 2018, 11:36:16 PM »
ManVFruit,

I’ve been recommending LaVern Manilla because it has been tried and tested over many years but recent plantings have revealed to me that most random seedlings(that are vigorous) will work as well and in many cases, even better than LaVern Manilla.

I recommend you plant seeds from both Monoembryonic and Polyembryonic varieties. Plant both types around the areas where you want your tree to be and just let them grow and establish. Once they are established, you can top work them.

The younger they are when you top work them, the fewer number of grafts you have to perform because you can graft the main scaffold branches when they are young. The added benefit of grafting low is that you don’t need to give your tree as much attention because you won’t have to worry as much about the rootstock sending up shoots.

The downside to grafting young and low is that because you grafted with mature scions, your grafts will likely flower and fruit in its first or second winter. When flowering is initiated, the weight of the flower panicles will cause the branches to droop towards the ground.

The bending of the branches from a vertical position to a horizontal position further exacerbates the problem because branches that are bent horizontally triggers a hormonal chain reaction which further pushes the balance of the tree towards floral initiation and away from vegetative growth.

We do NOT want our young Mango trees to flower and fruit at a young age! This may sound counter intuitive but trust me on this. We want to delay flowering and fruit production as long as possible.

One technique that helps a bit is to stake up your tree branches as vertical as possible. This is the opposite of what our friends in Florida and other warmer regions want to do but you have to remember that we are growing in a marginal climate for Mangos.

Brad and I have a ton of experimental mango plants growing and we are working on a best practice in order to come up with a technique that will grow the strongest healthiest mango trees with the least amount of effort.

Simon

ManVFruit

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #193 on: December 13, 2018, 01:49:42 AM »
Thank you for taking time to write a detailed yet short and easy to ready post, I will most defiantly use this advice in the future when I find a more permanent place (in ground) for them, for now I will just use the three manila seedlings I just got from walter anderson nursery in Poway, oh and they still have some going for $19.99 if anyone is interested. They are in small pots and will most likely try to do approach graft with them, and then gradually move them to bigger pots once I confirm they did take.

 What are your thoughts on Nam Doc Mai as variety? I have 3 seedlings I am growing from seed, is it a variety worth keeping in the hope one is true poly ? or even graft one onto one of my manilas?

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #194 on: December 13, 2018, 01:58:29 AM »
Thank you for contributing.

All your questions have been answered in detail. Please use the search function before asking.

ManVFruit

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #195 on: December 13, 2018, 02:11:15 AM »
Thank you for contributing.

All your questions have been answered in detail. Please use the search function before asking.

Oolie, the above reply is for Simon, I did not use quote feature my apologies if that confused you. I need to learn to use it more often. No not all my questions are answered no, my first were perfectly addressed by Simon though.

simon_grow

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #196 on: December 14, 2018, 09:02:02 PM »
ManVFruit,

NDM is a great variety to grow from seed.

Brad and I have actually come up with a better way to grow out Polyembryonic seedlings compared to what I recommended about a year ago. Last year, I recommended that we plant Polyembryonic seeds and simply let all the seedlings grow but in our field plantings, we noticed that the seedlings started pushing each other aside, causing them to grow slanted to one side.

Brad came up with the idea to graft one of the seedlings onto another seedling so that we can have a single trunk with two seedling varieties coming out of it. In hindsight, this should have clearly been foreseeable but we have so many different projects we are working on that it’s hard to put too much thought into any one project.

Simon

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #197 on: December 14, 2018, 09:32:16 PM »
I split a few poly seedlings and planted in multiple holes also.  That is also possible and the plant will take that no problem if its just a few months old or less.  Just carefully seperate them.

Brad Spaugh

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #198 on: December 14, 2018, 09:36:24 PM »
Here’s a brief summary of our new technique for growing Polyembryonic mango seedlings.

Plant a Polyembryonic mango seed. You will need at least two sprouts from the seed to almost guarantee you get a clone. Based on literature, there can be more than one zygotic seedling so I can’t say for sure you’ll get a clone.

If you get a lot of seedlings coming up from a seed, select the largest one to use as rootstock and select the next biggest one as a scion donor to graft onto the rootstock. Before you graft onto the rootstock, ensure you save at least one branch from the rootstock in case it is the clone. Because the scion donor is slightly less vigorous, it should be grafted up higher.

In a batch of seedlings coming up from one Polyembryonic mango seed, if there are multiple seedlings that look the same and have similar growth rates, there is a good chance that they are the clones. Remember that I have hypothesized that the Zygotic seedling arising from a Polyembryonic seed can have the potential to yield good tasting fruit. I believe this to be true because such a seedling will have at least 50% of its genes from the maternal parent and the other 50% of its genes will be from another variety or itself.

Even if the zygotic seedling is selfed( pollinated by its own pollen) there will be rearrangement of its genetic material and the resulting fruit can be very different from the parent fruit.

Since most of us are only growing top tier varieties, the paternal pollen(if not selfed) will likely come from another top tier variety.

Simon

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Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« Reply #199 on: December 14, 2018, 10:39:53 PM »
Here’s a brief summary of our new technique for growing Polyembryonic mango seedlings.

Plant a Polyembryonic mango seed. You will need at least two sprouts from the seed to almost guarantee you get a clone. Based on literature, there can be more than one zygotic seedling so I can’t say for sure you’ll get a clone.

If you get a lot of seedlings coming up from a seed, select the largest one to use as rootstock and select the next biggest one as a scion donor to graft onto the rootstock. Before you graft onto the rootstock, ensure you save at least one branch from the rootstock in case it is the clone. Because the scion donor is slightly less vigorous, it should be grafted up higher.

In a batch of seedlings coming up from one Polyembryonic mango seed, if there are multiple seedlings that look the same and have similar growth rates, there is a good chance that they are the clones. Remember that I have hypothesized that the Zygotic seedling arising from a Polyembryonic seed can have the potential to yield good tasting fruit. I believe this to be true because such a seedling will have at least 50% of its genes from the maternal parent and the other 50% of its genes will be from another variety or itself.

Even if the zygotic seedling is selfed( pollinated by its own pollen) there will be rearrangement of its genetic material and the resulting fruit can be very different from the parent fruit.

Since most of us are only growing top tier varieties, the paternal pollen(if not selfed) will likely come from another top tier variety.

Simon

Valuable work you guys are doing, thank you for taking time to share.

Only one of the three NDM seedlings had two seedlings growing, I cut the weaker and slower one of the two few months back, all three are single seedlings growing in individual pots now. I may in future want to use one as rootstock for another variety and keep the two to grow in the hope I get good NDM fruits from them one day .

In the event I wanted to participate in some of the experiments you guys are doing, what Polyembryonic seeds besides NDM would you recommend? NDM seeds are difficult to get locally.

Thanks