Author Topic: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??  (Read 3297 times)

JakeFruit

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Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« on: September 04, 2019, 11:00:25 AM »
I have a few dozen Tommy Atkins mango seedlings, all started within the last 2 months, each 10-12" tall. Most are fairly thick and growing vigorously, I tried grafting to them using several techniques (t-bud, cleft, veneer, whip) but none took. I'm wondering if they are just too young. Has anyone had success grafting to very young seedlings (any tips for success)? I noticed the more damaging techniques (cleft, whip) seemed to quickly trigger the seeding to produce numerous new growth shoots from the seed. The whip has been especially frustrating, a few perfectly lined-up grafts went no-where. I had read that t-budding seedlings can be very successful, the green bark is very easy to split & peel, but all my buds just turn black after a week or two.

Also, I've seen so many grafting videos with various advice, placing the new graft in the shade, wrapping it in foil, sheathing the graft in a clear plastic bag. None of those seem to ensure any greater success. I am in South Florida, plenty of humidity and sunshine. I have successful grafts, but it seems like I run around a 5-10% success rate. Very often I will get a cleft or veneer graft that seems to take, scion will stay green for months, but either the buds will swell without ever producing a shoot or the terminal shoot will spring almost immediately but each new leaf falls off and the new shoot browns & dies. The scion will remain green and new buds will swell, but they never progress past that. After a few months it seems like the tree gives up and the scion slowly dies away, even if I top the root-stock down to just above the scion and clip any new growth. Anyone have any tips I could try to get the swelling buds to spring?

mangomanic12

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2019, 12:07:33 PM »
JakeFruit , just curious why are you growing seedling trees in Florida?

JakeFruit

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2019, 12:23:23 PM »
The seedlings are the root stock I'm grafting onto. I don't have any mature trees I can air-layer yet....

sapote

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2019, 03:31:29 PM »
No body do air-layering for mango, so it must be a reason.

Why you want to graft on so young trees? I would wait for the seedlings to have trunk size at 2" diameter at least before grafting. 

noochka1

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2019, 03:57:31 PM »
I do some seedling and stone grafting - mostly for propagating narrow, twiggy bud wood.  My take rate is probably 50-60% which isn't super - but it does work (at least half the time LOL!).  I always keep the seedlings in shade for a few weeks until I see new growth.  I've seen a lot of videos in which the grafts are bagged as well.  I don't do that, but it might be useful to maintain a moist environment.

Regards,
Scott

JakeFruit

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #5 on: September 04, 2019, 05:18:53 PM »
On air-layering mangoes, I've seen several videos where it's done. I actually do have a large Atalufo that I am currently trying to air-layer, it's about 1 month in, so I don't know if it's a go or not. I haven't even gotten the Atalufo to fruit yet, so it's mostly just to see if it can be done. Next year I'll have plenty of year-old seedlings, but right now I'm itching to get some new varieties going and most of my older root stock is looking sad, hacked up from numerous grafting attempts.

Scott, I think I will try shading the graftlings for a few weeks next time. Couldn't hurt. I had 5 scions (Sweet Tart, Lemon Zest, Graham, Kathy & ZINC), I took a veneer cutting and several buds off of each. The Sweet Tart veneer and a bud graft both took (on year-old seedlings), so I have two potential Sweet Tart trees, but all the rest have failed.

noochka1

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #6 on: September 04, 2019, 06:53:00 PM »
In my very limited experience, I've had the "best" luck grafting on seedlings using full cleft and whip grafts.  I put the grafted plants in shade simply because the bud wood is often so small that it seems to cook pretty much immediately in full sun.  This might be why the bags are used in those online videos.  I've had numerous seedling graft apocalypses (is there a plural for apocalypse?), so I'm trying to learn from my failures.
 
At the moment I have K-3, Keitt and Florigon (I think) stone grafted.  The grafts were done about 3 weeks ago and, of the 3, only K-3 is flushing.  It seems like it often takes a fairly long time for grafted seedlings to flush.  Not really sure why that is.  Maybe the bags help.  They seem to flush in seconds on those Youtube videos :-)

Best regards,
Scott 

simon_grow

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #7 on: September 05, 2019, 05:38:15 PM »
I have grafted many mango seedlings and I get the highest success rate with stone grafting. Just plant the Monoembryonic mango seed in a pot and let it grow and expand its first set of leaves. Just before the first set of leaves turns green, it is ready for grafting. You can actually graft earlier as long as the diameter of the rootstock is thick enough to match the scion.

When the first leaves first emerge from the seedling, the color of the stem and leaves is copper or reddish in color. At this stage of growth, the seedling is getting its energy from the seed and grafting success is close to 100%.

Even after the leaves have hardened and turned green, you can still graft with a high success rate.

I wrap my scions with Parafilm or Buddytape and place the potted plant in shade or partial sun for about 1-2 weeks. This 1-2 week recovery is to allow the union to heal over. After about 2 weeks, you can acclimate it to full sun.

If you are grafting onto in ground trees, I cover my grafts with shade if the temps are above around 95F

Simon

achetadomestica

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #8 on: September 05, 2019, 10:35:34 PM »
Simon
This will only work for Monoembryonic seeds?

I planted turpentine seeds which are poly and I cut away all but the largest seedling.
Would it work to graft now?
Originally I planned to graft early summer next year when the seedlings are pushing 2' hopefully?
I think I got to try 1-2 anyway?

Thanks
« Last Edit: September 06, 2019, 11:06:31 AM by achetadomestica »

Orkine

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #9 on: September 05, 2019, 10:46:04 PM »
You can graft on young seedking.  Se the video below from youtube.  I found it with a quick search.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y1qlZKcezs

Also, you can air-layer mango in Florida.  I have done a few.  Two developed strong roots and I transplanted them in the ground after keeping them in a pot for several months.  They died for some reason.  I still have one which has been in the ground a few years.  It made fruit this past season.  I planted a seedling next to it that I plan on in-arching into it to give it a good root system  the seedling is growing so well I am considering keeping it and canning the air layer.  It is just a pain to do air layers when one can plant several seeds and have seedlings for grafting in a year (or less).

I have tried stone grafting as well (fresh growth - before it turns green while it still draws resources from the seed).  I know it works for others and I did get a couple of takes but I am no fan.  Simon had a nice post on the subject a while ago as part of an experiment he scuttled for other reasons.

Good luck.


Oolie

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #10 on: September 05, 2019, 11:31:00 PM »
I have performed many grafts on young seedlings this year. All of them had well hardened off growth. It seems the two factors that most affected my early failure and later success were that the temperature needs to be high, the first go around, night temperatures were in the low 80s, now with good success, the temps are in the mid to high 80s around midnight. The other factor was watering, during the first time around when I had failures, I was only watering once a week. Now I water once a day and am getting lots of new growth.

JakeFruit

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #11 on: September 06, 2019, 09:56:27 AM »
Hmmm, thanks everybody for the contributions. Crazy to see the one video where he grafts a big scion onto such a thin seedling successfully, though the resulting tree union doesn't look very stable to me. Stone grafting also looks kinda crazy from the video I saw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC9ICv9LMlQ), how the cambium of the seedling & scion are matched up seems haphazard. The video also explains double grafting, using two seeds/stones per scion. I think I'll give double grafting a try, having two root systems seems ideal and matching up the cambium should be a lot easier. Just happy to see that grafting can be achieved using seedlings, I guess I'm not done grafting this year/season.

I think my biggest issue may be the SW Florida sun, I've been wrapping the grafts in para-film (obviously) and a layer of tinfoil to protect from the rays, but I think the full sun exposure to the rest of the plant is a problem. This next batch of grafts is going in the shade for a few weeks....

simon_grow

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #12 on: September 06, 2019, 12:13:24 PM »
Simon
This will only work for Monoembryonic seeds?

I planted turpentine seeds which are poly and I cut away all but the largest seedling.
Would it work to graft now?
Originally I planned to graft early summer next year when the seedlings are pushing 2' hopefully?
I think I got to try 1-2 anyway?

Thanks

It will work with Polyembryonic varieties also but if you were doing stone grafting, the diameter of the Polyembryonic seedlings will be too thin to graft unless you have very small scions.

Since you plan on grafting next year, you’ll be fine. Cleft grafts are probably easiest for most people but I get slightly better takes with veneers.

You can place a cleft graft at the top and then add an additional side veneer lower down as a backup.

Simon

simon_grow

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #13 on: September 06, 2019, 12:19:16 PM »
Hmmm, thanks everybody for the contributions. Crazy to see the one video where he grafts a big scion onto such a thin seedling successfully, though the resulting tree union doesn't look very stable to me. Stone grafting also looks kinda crazy from the video I saw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC9ICv9LMlQ), how the cambium of the seedling & scion are matched up seems haphazard. The video also explains double grafting, using two seeds/stones per scion. I think I'll give double grafting a try, having two root systems seems ideal and matching up the cambium should be a lot easier. Just happy to see that grafting can be achieved using seedlings, I guess I'm not done grafting this year/season.

I think my biggest issue may be the SW Florida sun, I've been wrapping the grafts in para-film (obviously) and a layer of tinfoil to protect from the rays, but I think the full sun exposure to the rest of the plant is a problem. This next batch of grafts is going in the shade for a few weeks....

I have a whole thread here on Double stone grafted trees. In Florida, it may be very beneficial because it stunts the size of the tree and at my location, it induces precocity. Both of these are very bad in San Diego unless you want a Bonsai tree but in Florida where Mangos grow like weeds, it can help cut down on tree maintenance.

http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=16549.0

Simon

JakeFruit

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #14 on: September 06, 2019, 12:20:05 PM »
Very true regarding the mono v. poly widths, Simon. I just starting growing some mono root-stocks this year and it's pretty dramatic the difference in size. Some of my 3 week old seedlings are as thick as my year old turpentines.

JakeFruit

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #15 on: September 06, 2019, 12:21:23 PM »

I have a whole thread here on Double stone grafted trees. In Florida, it may be very beneficial because it stunts the size of the tree and at my location, it induces precocity. Both of these are very bad in San Diego unless you want a Bonsai tree but in Florida where Mangos grow like weeds, it can help cut down on tree maintenance.

http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=16549.0

Simon

Thanks Simon! Keeping them manageable is a priority indeed.

JakeFruit

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #16 on: September 06, 2019, 12:28:00 PM »
I'm going to read through the 10 pages in the thread you linked, but what's the quick skinny on you experience using seedlings that have gone past the copper-colored leaf stage? Lots of my seedlings have gone well past that stage, but I was thinking of giving double grafting with them a try.

simon_grow

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #17 on: September 06, 2019, 01:58:34 PM »
When you use newly emerged seedlings in the copper leaf stage, it’s like having stem cells that are undifferentiated. In this stage, the grafts will easily take.

The main problem with these young seedlings in this stage is that the stem is extremely soft, fragile and juicy. You have to use a thin blade and a steady hand because cutting into these seedlings is like a hot knife through butter.

If you use older seedlings, the grafts will still take but they just take a bit longer to heal. I’ve done double rootstock grafting with green leaf seedlings and they were fine.

Simon

JakeFruit

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Re: Grafting to Young Mango Seedlings, How Early & Successful? Shade??
« Reply #18 on: September 06, 2019, 03:05:49 PM »
Indeed a couple of my t-bud and cleft attempts became whip grafts when I sliced right through the seedlings.