How long for the seedlings to fruit typically from seed?

I believe this is variety specific for polyembryonic varieties and is likely heavily influenced by climate and other factors such as how well the tree is cared for. I can only assume that a well cared for tree in a warmer climate will reach sexual maturity much faster than a poorly cared for tree in a colder climate. I’ve heard people saying anywhere from 4-10 years. I would guess that in Florida, a seedling mango tree will flower and try to hold fruit at around 4-6 years but I’m just guessing.

Simon

Thanks for the info Jeff!

I have several OS seedlings growing and vigor is a good thing in SoCal. Lemon Zest has horrible issues with Powdery Mildew here, hopefully OS will perform a little better in that respect. I already have PPK and LZ so OS, if I select the right clone, will round out this trifecta.

Simon

Thanks for the info gozp, that was a fun day!

Simon

If you do not want to graft, I recommend you plant seeds from Polyembryonic varieties. If you have access to Sweet Tart, Po Pyu Kalay, Lemon Zest, Orange Sherbet, Nam Doc Mai, these will be good varieties to plant because they are polyembryonic and if you get more than one sprout, one of the sprouts may be a clone and give you good quality fruit without grafting.

These seeds are difficult if not impossible to find here in SoCal so you may want to try planting Ataulfo/Champagne/Manilla mango seeds instead because they are also polyembryonic but are readily available in our local markets.

If you plant a Monoembryonic seed from the common large round green to rainbow colored Mango, there is no telling what type of fruit you will get when it finally fruits. They do make good rootstocks however so if you learn to graft, I recommend you plant a bunch of different types of mango seeds to see which one adapts best to your particular soil conditions. If you’re after good quality fruit and you don’t know how to graft, plant a polyembryonic variety.

You can also buy pre grafted trees but they may grow slow and get droopy although you will likely get fruit very shortly after planting. Getting fruit from a young, unestablished tree is actually really bad for your tree and is one of the main reasons small grafted trees grow slowly, they expend too much energy on flowering and fruit production.

Simon

Thanks for the support everyone!

Ethan, I’m glad you had success with grafting Lychees. You and Max are both very skilled grafters to accomplish this task.

Har, thanks for the valuable information. This gives me more hope that I will be successful and that there are benefits to grafted Lychee trees.

Andrewq, that’s right, a member here(fruit4me) has successfully grafted Lychee onto Longan and was even able to get the Lychee graft to Fruit on the Longan rootstock. See this thread:
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=315.0

Fang, I replanted the seedlings into tall narrow pots. I had to use narrow pots because I need to bring the potted seedling Lychees closer to the named varieties I will be innarching them to.

I looked at my plant tags and some seedlings are about 1 year old but some are closer to 2 years old.














Simon

Here’s a closeup shot of the roots. Notice that there is no indication that the roots have been colonized by mycorrhizal fungi.

I just transplanted these seedlings into their new pots so I have to wait until they recover from the transplant shock before innarching them.





Simon

Lychees are one of my favorite fruit and I’ve been growing them for some time now but unfortunately they just don’t grow well in ground at my house because of my alkaline soil and water. I’ve resorted to growing them in pots for now and I also planted trees at my in laws place where their soil is closer to neutral pH.

In the past, I was growing some highly coveted varieties like Kwa Luk, No Mai Tsze and Salathiel but they all eventually succumbed to my poor soil conditions. Reports from people I contacted in Florida indicated that Kwa Luk and No Mai Tsze are particularly susceptible adverse soil conditions and many of the trees for these two varieties eventually died.

Emperor is another Lychee that I’ve noticed performs poorly on its own roots if soil conditions are not ideal. I’ve personally experienced this myself with my Emperor growing great for a couple years and then it dies out of the blue.

Because of these circumstances I have to deal with, I decided to try innarch grafting Emperor onto seedling rootstocks to see if I can get it to grow faster and to survive long term in my poor soil.

I will also be innarching two Lychee seedlings together to see if they will grow faster with two rootstocks. After the Union has healed, I will innarch a named variety onto the double rootstock seedling tree.

A third experiment I will be testing out is to innarch a Longan seedling to a Lychee seedling. Once the graft heals, I will top off the Longan seedling leaving the Lychee top which I will then innarch a named variety onto.

My fourth experiment is to follow the same technique I used for growing avocado and directly plant Lychee seeds in my alkaline soil and hope that the seedling with its intact tap root will be better able to adapt to the native soil.

Simon

Alphonso definitely has some PM issues grown in San Diego and the flavor of the fruit is also not as good as those grown in India but who knows, the fruit I harvested from my tree were on a small tree and it was on Florida Turpentine rootstock so it wasn’t very healthy.

If I recall correctly, it’s best to spray before blooms open and then again after Fruit set but it depends what you’re using. Baking soda water is pretty benign so you may want to try it on half the tree.

An orchard type Sulfur  spray may also work but I don’t know if it will inhibit Fruit set if you spray on open blooms.

Simon

What variety is that? Some varieties seem better able to hold fruit even with PM on the blooms and other varieties like Lemon Zest seem to have issues setting full sized fruit when there’s PM. I think Har is the best person to answer this question. I’ve personally sprayed newly opened blooms with a systemic fungicide, Abound, and as far as I’m aware, there were no issues.

I’ve also read about the use of baking soda to inhibit PM growth. I use baking soda water to inhibit Fungal growth on my indoor wheatgrass cultures. I use about 1 tablespoon per gallon. I’ve never tried it on Mango though.

Simon

Hey Mark, the Gel2 foot pots are indicated for greenwood cuttings so not sure if they’ll work for Cherimoya scions but it’s worth a try.

I’m downing a pint of Pliny the Younger so I’m surprised I can even type!

It’s ok to loosen the soil a bit to allow the roots push through compacted soil. Once you bury it with native soil, it is ok to put a top dress of Sulfur if the pH of your soil is too low but it’s probabl not required. Avocado also love to be mulched. Please keep us updated on how it grows for you.

I’ve had several people pm me about their success growing direct planted seedlings after failing with nursery trees.

Simon

Thanks Future, time to place an order on Amazon!

Simon

I get some minor frost almost every year but today’s frost was a little thicker than in previous years. When I scrapped my windshield, the ice particles were large enough to scratch my windshield but just barely and I stopped before I caused more damage. Tonight’s going to be another cold one so if you have a frost advisory in your area, take your plants in now. I hope everyone’s plants make it through.

Simon