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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Growing Mango trees in Southern California
« on: October 31, 2022, 12:24:38 AM »
It is OK to buy grafted trees. Yes the seedlings can grow faster but not always. My grafted lemon zest and grafted orange sherbet trees are beasts. Yes some seedlings (mainly monoembryonic seedlings) are as large but not nearly as branched and certainly have not yet brought the same type of joy as the grafted trees.
My strategy has been to plant seeds next to and surrounding the grafted trees. Originally I was going to inarch graft everything but I got lazy. Some grafted trees as mentioned have done very well. Others (juicy Peach) have been laggards. Orange essence, coconut cream, M4, and Phoenix grow very well too.
Pina colada seems to be slow regardless. However mine was already 3 years old from Florida when I bought it. It's about 5 ft tall but maybe 6 feet wide at this point with so much dense branching that it really looks like 2 or 3 dwarf trees. i would caution everyone to acknowledge that there are multiple paths to success. Yes seedlings are tried and true but you can still have success with turpentine (seems to be delayed in socal-I think more due to leggy growth exposing branches to sunburn, rot of these branches during winter, and subsequent decline).
I'm in orange in a valley between 2 hills and get about 400-500 chill hours per year and still get great growth on the mangos.
My strategy has been to plant seeds next to and surrounding the grafted trees. Originally I was going to inarch graft everything but I got lazy. Some grafted trees as mentioned have done very well. Others (juicy Peach) have been laggards. Orange essence, coconut cream, M4, and Phoenix grow very well too.
Pina colada seems to be slow regardless. However mine was already 3 years old from Florida when I bought it. It's about 5 ft tall but maybe 6 feet wide at this point with so much dense branching that it really looks like 2 or 3 dwarf trees. i would caution everyone to acknowledge that there are multiple paths to success. Yes seedlings are tried and true but you can still have success with turpentine (seems to be delayed in socal-I think more due to leggy growth exposing branches to sunburn, rot of these branches during winter, and subsequent decline).
I'm in orange in a valley between 2 hills and get about 400-500 chill hours per year and still get great growth on the mangos.