polyembryonic mango seed produces one sprout?

[rtdrury]

The small yellow mangos common in US groceries I thought were Ataulfo (or Carabao, Philippine, Manila, Honey).  This variety is supposed to be polyembryonic.  Inside the seed is one large embryo that germinates into one plant, which seems to indicate it's monoembryonic.  Is it possible that this can be polyembryonic?  Or is the grocery mango actually another monoembryonic variety?  I hope to sprout a clone of the tree that produces the grocery mangos.  Any experience with these?  Thanks.

[RodneyS]

Polyembryonic mangoes can have 1 or more plants.

[simon_grow]

I agree with RodneyS,

Polyembryonic Mangos can produce one or multiple sprouts. If you planted one of the yellow or greenish yellow kidney bean shaped Manilla/Ataulfo/Champagne Mangos, plant several more seeds and you will eventually get some with multiple sprouts.

Simon

[rtdrury]

So when we find just one sprout from a polyembryonic mango, we expect it's not a clone, true?  Perhaps polyembryonic mango seeds always have one mutated embryo and possibly additional clone embryos.  Is this a good way to say it?

[simon_grow]

I’ve done lots of Googling regarding this subject and the clone/zygotic seedling being the dominant or smaller seedling may be dependent on the variety. Also, there can be more than one zygotic seedling although this is often Not the case.

The best way to get a clone is to plant a polyembryonic seed and then ensure you get more than one sprout from different segments of the seed. You then grow out all the seedlings and wait for them to fruit and cut off the varieties you don’t want. There is still the possibility that you got multiple zygotic seedlings but this should be a rarity.

Simon

[rtdrury]

Thanks, Simon.  Seems most often in your experience there is a pair of seedlings, one clonal/zygotic, one not, in a polyembryonic mango seed.  Here is an image comparing mono & poly embryos.  It seems the poly embryo has multiple attached parts.  This can be identified by cutting off the hull so one can knowingly germinate polyembryonic, I suppose. 

[chris1]

So without growing all the sprouts is there a way to know which one is the clone? Out of curiosity I planted seeds from an NDM, Peach, and Thai Everbearing all polys. Very quickly they sent up new sprouts. The NDM now has two. How would we know which is which?

[simon_grow]

Without genetic testing, you really wouldn’t know which one is the clone. But, after working on a particular variety of polyembryonic Mango for a long time, I suppose one would be better able to recognize off types.

Us backyard gardeners propagating multiple varieties of polyembryonic Mangos and only working with very few seeds/seedlings, it is very difficult to know which is the clone so best to grow them all out to fruition.

Some varieties like Lemon Zest and Sweet start have a very distinct smell to the sap when you crush a young leaf in your hand. One may be able to crush the leaves of the various sprouts from a polyembryonic seed and compare it to the smell of the actual grafted variety in order to find the offtype.

I’ve been crushing a lot of leaves lately from many seedling Mangos and let’s focus on Sweet Tart for a moment. So far, every seedling that came up from my Sweet Tart seeds had a very very strong indo Chinese resin smell to the sap. My initial thoughts were that all the sprouts were clones because they all smelled like the sap from an actual Sweet Tart leaf but it dawned on me that the genes that determine the compounds in the sap, probably turpenes, can be a dominant trait and the zygotic seedling, wether it was selfed or cross pollinated by some other variety may have the same sap smell simply because of dominance.

Simon

[AnnonaMangoLord45]

I have noticed that sometimes, the dominant seedling is so strong, that it prevents the others from growing. I observed this when repotting my sweet tart mango seedling that had only one sprout. It looks like the other segments tried to root out, then failed. It might be because the seed is diverting its energy to that one seedling.

[Future]

Without genetic testing, you really wouldn’t know which one is the clone. But, after working on a particular variety of polyembryonic Mango for a long time, I suppose one would be better able to recognize off types.

Us backyard gardeners propagating multiple varieties of polyembryonic Mangos and only working with very few seeds/seedlings, it is very difficult to know which is the clone so best to grow them all out to fruition.

Some varieties like Lemon Zest and Sweet start have a very distinct smell to the sap when you crush a young leaf in your hand. One may be able to crush the leaves of the various sprouts from a polyembryonic seed and compare it to the smell of the actual grafted variety in order to find the offtype.

I’ve been crushing a lot of leaves lately from many seedling Mangos and let’s focus on Sweet Tart for a moment. So far, every seedling that came up from my Sweet Tart seeds had a very very strong indo Chinese resin smell to the sap. My initial thoughts were that all the sprouts were clones because they all smelled like the sap from an actual Sweet Tart leaf but it dawned on me that the genes that determine the compounds in the sap, probably turpenes, can be a dominant trait and the zygotic seedling, wether it was selfed or cross pollinated by some other variety may have the same sap smell simply because of dominance.

Simon

I’m currently in West Africa working on a major mango project. (More on that later). One of the people helping me identifies local seedlings by crushing leaves and smelling them.

[rtdrury]

I found this regarding polyembryonic mango seeds of variety 'turpentine' for use as rootstock in http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/29/4/319.full.pdf: "Seeds were planted in containers, one seed per container, and the seedlings thinned to the largest seedling that emerged; this is standard commercial practice because it is more expensive to break off and replant multiple seedlings emerging from a single seed than it is to plant an abundance of seeds and thin to the largest one."

Does this suggest that the dominant seedling from a seed can be just as likely nucellar (clone of mother) as the smaller seedlings?  If so, then one may sprout seeds from a number of fruits, keeping the dominant seedling from each, and have a number of strong plants to grow up and select from, eliminating the need to rely on weak seedlings.

I recognized in another batch of grocery mangos (small yellow ones, either ataulfo or manila, etc) polyembryony but they are different than the poly seed in the photo above.  They have multiple embryos but these are not so distinct from each other, but rather they fit together tightly, so one must look carefully to detect poly.

[rtdrury]

There seems to be two types of seedlings from these little yellow mangos common in US groceries.  One type seems to have a 1/4" dia., very long and fast-growing taproot that preceeds the stalk, and the other type with a much smaller 1/16" dia. taproot much slower growing. 

Maybe embryos with the large taproot indicate a zygotic non-clone, and the small ones indicate a nucellar clone of the mother?  The difference is huge.  Not only are the small ones much smaller dia. but they put out a further bunch of even finer roots, while the very large/long taproot has none of these finer roots.

Could the large taproot indicate zygotic and small taproot indicate nucellar?

[Future]

I found this regarding polyembryonic mango seeds of variety 'turpentine' for use as rootstock in http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/29/4/319.full.pdf: "Seeds were planted in containers, one seed per container, and the seedlings thinned to the largest seedling that emerged; this is standard commercial practice because it is more expensive to break off and replant multiple seedlings emerging from a single seed than it is to plant an abundance of seeds and thin to the largest one."

Does this suggest that the dominant seedling from a seed can be just as likely nucellar (clone of mother) as the smaller seedlings? 

Commercial turpentine work suggest these are grown for rootstock and the exact parentage of the seed is of little relevance.  They are simply indicating time is better spent selecting one seedling than replanting several.  The way I see it, it is not a commentary on clone likelihood.