Information and discussion on Mango rootstocks

[Jose Spain]

In french, google can tanslate it:

http://www.viverosblanco.com/fr/notre-selection-de-porte-greffes

Viveros Blanco is a Spanish company here in Malaga, great professionals with a long experience in subtropicals. They have the site in English too:

http://www.viverosblanco.com/en/our-rootstock-selection

And here they describe some problems with rootstock criollo:

http://www.viverosblanco.com/en/presentation

IMO Gomera 3, 13/1 and Banilejo are interesting options for SoCal, since you share with us same climate and soil conditions. Besides the last two are moderate or little vigorous and in the case of 13/1 is almost a dwarfing rootstock, what make them even more appropriate for backyard. I gonna call them this week and see if I can get one 13/1 and one Banilejo to experiment with them (Gomera 3 is the usual rootstock here).

Hi Jose
I have tried many times to contact them but never got an answer
Do you know if they still sell  to the public?
In the home page
http://viverosblanco.com/en/
they write:
"We export plants anywhere in the world. Our latest exports have been to Morocco, Lebanon, Portugal, Greece and Italy."

Hi! They only sell big quantities...

...how big?

They work just with professional plantations, so they wouldn't answer emails from particulars, but they would tell you by phone what they have in stock and they will sell to any particular that goes in person to their facilities in Vélez-Málaga. I bought just 2 weeks ago 1 mango, 1 lúcuma La Molina and 1 litchi. They would give you all the info regarding plantation and watering for the first year along with sanitary passport of the plants. But just if you go in person, they do not serve by post any plant to particulars. What are you interested in? Right now they don't have sapodilla, canistel nor white sapote. They don't sell rootstocks, so if you are interested in Gomera 3, 13.1 or others better to try others in Vélez-Málaga.

[simon_grow]

Some of the links I provided are too old and now broken. Here’s a newer link that works.

https://www.mango.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Mango_rootstock_Final_Report_Eng.pdf

Simon

[MangoMission]

How have those socal rootstock experiments gone over the last five years? 

[simon_grow]

The rootstock experiments have given me a lot of useful information although the sample size is still too small to be statistically significant. The double stone grafting technique is not recommended because it induces precocity to the point that a young tree just 12 inches tall will bloom and attempt to hold fruit. This issue for me, in our relatively cold climate, may actually be a benefit in warmer climates like Florida or the Philippines where a reduction in the growth rate and increase in precocity may be beneficial. 

The California Super Mango rootstock works very well and significantly increases growth and because mature scions are not used, the issue of precocity is averted. I only made a couple of CSMR trees and unfortunately gophers killed both trees that were planted at the orchard. The significantly faster growth rate of these multiple rootstock seedling trees was enough for me to conclude that this technique is great for increasing the rate of growth for mango trees in SoCal.

One or two additional rootstocks is enough to see the benefits.

The CSMR trees can be a waste of rootstocks however and I came up with the simple idea of grafting seedling scions from Polyembryonic varieties such as Sweet Tart, E4, Orange Sherbet, Pina Colada onto any vigorous seedling rootstock and so far the trees are growing much better than trees grafted with mature scions.

The negative aspects of this technique is that you can’t be sure if you’re grafting a clone or the zygotic seedling. Even if you grafted the zygotic seedling, however, approximately 50% of the genetic material will one from the maternal parent that bore the fruit and you may get a fruit that still tastes great or potentially even better tasting than the parent.

Several friends have grown mango trees grafted with both mature scions and seedling scions and all have reported that the seedling scions are significantly larger and healthier than the branches grafted with mature scions.

I am sure that many more growers in SoCal will be using this technique in the future once word gets out how effective it is.

Simon