Seedling mango trees. Pointless experiment??

[Kona fruit farm]

Hello my friends.  I recently planted a seed from my Raposa and pirie mangos.  Both mangoes are incredibly delicious.  Super high quality.  JUST FOR FUN I planted two seeds and thought "hmm... What are the chances that these seedling trees could grow up and be a good mango like their parents without any grafting??   1%?   5%?   I know the chances are incredibly low and will likely result in a small, stringy, common looking junk mango.   But part of me is willing to just see the experiment though for kicks.  And in 6-8 years when my tree is producing mangoes I may cut it down or I may be happy with my new mango discovery of deliciousness.    (98% chance it's no good). 

Question is does anyone on this forum reading this have any experience themselves planting a mango seedling and it actually turning out to be a good mango??  After all this is how new varieties have come into existence right?   Sounds like from what I've heard of you planted 100 pirie seeds you might get 1 tree that's a high quality new fruit.  True?   

[behlgarden]

In poly embryonic, there are chances of it coming true to parent as there is at least one clone, rest are a toss up, meaning it could be junk, average, good, or top tier excellent one. In Mono embryonic chances drop even lower.

However if you dont try you dont win. We have a seedling of Indian Chaunsa that hands down beats chaunsa. JF this year fruited seedling of Juliette which turned out to be better than parent. No matter what folks say, whether its Zills OR Haji or Anyone else, getting seedling mango to be superior is just pure luck. that's all. 

everyone should try. you never know.

[Don]

Just like any breeding program if you start out pairing something desirable with something else desirable you have already put yourself ahead as it is more likely the better traits will be passed on. Not always guaranteed but I bet your chances are better than 2%. Cant hurt trying if you have the room and patience.

[TheDom]

To speed things up a bit you may take some budwood from your new seedling and graft it on to an already producing tree. Sometimes the mature tree flowering can induce the younger budwood to do the same.

[DimplesLee]

I didn't know this trick - does this also work for mangosteens and other garcinias? I have some grafted mangosteens but the rootstock is just a two-year old seedling. If it works for Gm I'll take budwood from the frustratingly dwarf, seems to be doing nothing tree and find a mature tree so I can finally get mangosteens before I get turn old and grey and can no longer climb trees

[shaneatwell]

Kona, anecdotally the chances seem fairly decent for mango, munch better than for apples or even avocados. Behl or Leo (via simon) might be able to tell you how many they planted, how many they kept as being worthwhile and how many were actually better than the parent.

For my own experiments (just finding a rootstock that'll survive), I plan to eventually multigraft, but leave at least one branch from the seedling rootstock. Just to see. For the same reason TheDom mentions, this'll also speed up the flowering of the rootstock.

[palmcity]

I too have planted some polyembryonic seedlings. Mine are from okrung or okrung tong trees.

I have about 3 shoots from each seed and am planning on waiting about a year to decide which seedling have the greatest chance of being true to the parent and then snipping off the other two.

Does anyone have experience in the art of picking the clone? My experience in this art is zero and would like some guesses. If one is twice the size of the other two after a year, would you guess the larger as being the mated new variety and the other two as the clones or would you think the opposite for the okrung species.

I found no information on the internet of this art. With dogs the new species (mutt)  is usually stronger than the pure breed. With humans also we often see problems with too much inbreeding resulting in recessive traits emerging of undesirable consequences. But, on the other hand you could say this okrung plant is already the most fit as it has lasted for thousands of years etc. of propagation and any cross will be weaker with a new parent added.

In 1 year from now if the 1 tall shoot continues to be growing faster and is about twice the size of the other 2 shoots, do you think the clone is  A. the one tall shoot or B. the two smaller shoots???

[shaneatwell]

Actually Kona there's an even better source. I thought I had posted about this before but i can't find it. From memory, the mango professor started with thousands of seedlings, culled them down to hundreds mainly for disease but also cold resistance, and has released tens. Though he did have seeds from some top tier mangos to start with, most were not. So setting aside the disease resistance issue, he's released ~13 and lets say he'll eventually release 20 from ~300 plants he kept and all of them better than their juicing mango parentage, so 7%? I've chatted with Leo a couple times, but I don't remember how many seedlings he's topworked. I don't think its that many, maybe 50%? In his case I think he started with mostly top tier. There's a first estimate: 50% will be worth keeping, 5% will be better than the parent (or at least different but equally excellent).

[Kona fruit farm]

Wow thanks guys. Great answers.  Especially yours Shane.    I will see the experiment through

[FrankDrebinOfFruits]

Actually Kona there's an even better source. I thought I had posted about this before but i can't find it. From memory, the mango professor started with thousands of seedlings, culled them down to hundreds mainly for disease but also cold resistance, and has released tens. Though he did have seeds from some top tier mangos to start with, most were not. So setting aside the disease resistance issue, he's released ~13 and lets say he'll eventually release 20 from ~300 plants he kept and all of them better than their juicing mango parentage, so 7%? I've chatted with Leo a couple times, but I don't remember how many seedlings he's topworked. I don't think its that many, maybe 50%? In his case I think he started with mostly top tier. There's a first estimate: 50% will be worth keeping, 5% will be better than the parent (or at least different but equally excellent).

.

I have heard on top of that that the smell of the leaves is used to "screen" if the flavor will be good or not. Not sure if there is any scientific backing to that theory though.

I think other factors (aside from disease resistance and taste) that affect screening would be growth habit (height and branching), precociousness, reliability, drought and cold resistance (if they are targeted attributes). Some of those screening factors can be done earlier when the tree is small, unfortunately most of them take a full fruit cycle to tell.

[nighthawk0911@yahoo.com]

It's pretty much understood that most varieties are mono & won't grow true or will be at least slightly inferior in one way or another, but to rephrase the question slightly how likely will a Mango or Avocado seedling eventually produce edible decent tasting fruit as opposed to being a just a "total spitter".   I have an elderly neighbor with a 6+ mango trees all grown from seedlings (grown from Haden and/or VP seeds mostly probably) and while reliability from year to year seems to be an issue none of the fruit off any of the trees goes to waste and he and hos family seems to thoroughly enjoy them.   

In percentage terms what are the chances of producing a superior tasting fruit than the parent?  I assume it would be less than 1%, but just guessing.

[zands]

It's pretty much understood that most varieties are mono & won't grow true or will be at least slightly inferior in one way or another, but to rephrase the question slightly how likely will a Mango or Avocado seedling eventually produce edible decent tasting fruit as opposed to being a just a "total spitter".   I have an elderly neighbor with a 6+ mango trees all grown from seedlings (grown from Haden and/or VP seeds mostly probably) and while reliability from year to year seems to be an issue none of the fruit off any of the trees goes to waste and he and hos family seems to thoroughly enjoy them.   

In percentage terms what are the chances of producing a superior tasting fruit than the parent?  I assume it would be less than 1%, but just guessing.

On average seedling mango trees will produce good fruit though I did get some super stringy ones from a neighborhood seedling mango tree. My own seedling tree produces good looking red fruits with average mango taste. Fruits look above average.

red seedling fruits next to a NDM and a Carrie

But the catch with seedling trees is that most are going to ripen at the peak or close to the peak of the mango season, same as most grafted trees do.
If you want to eat some home grown mangoes outside those peak production weeks. If you want an early season or late season mango tree, then you must do your homework (research) and buy a known grafted variety. Such as Glenn is a known early tree and Keitt is a known late tree. When known mango varieties will ripen is known for South Florida. For Southern California this not as well known. This California information is more anecdotal and developing.

There are lots of seedling mango trees where I live. I doubt that many of the large and bearing trees are getting fertilized at all. I see some trees that produce each year and one in particular that I never see much fruit on. We know the production habits of known mango varieties but seedling mango trees are a crap shoot on production. You can be stuck with a dud that produces very edible fruits but not many of them each year.