The Tropical Fruit Forum

I am in SoCal and avocado trees are all over the place and for some reason I was never really interested in growing and have just focused on Mango trees. But I grew an avocado tree from seed and practiced bud grafting on it, first I put Fuerte on it that I gathered from a tree in Bakersfield, and then I put Reed on the fuerte. I topped the tree above the reed graft thinking to released the tree from ver to just Reed because I’ve heard good things about Reed and being able to maintain it relatively small.

But reading up on the two they seem like they would be pretty compatible trees and keep extended season so I’m wondering if it’s worth raising both varieties on the tree for my only avocado tree. I haven’t seen avocado trees offered as multigrafts before, and it seems grove practice is not to multigrafts trees for A and B but to instead plant one Fuerte (B Type) for every X number of Hass.


Is a multigraft for home a productive viable approach for home garden, or is the tree way less productive because it is producing fruit for the extended seasons?


I know there are enough avocados in my neighborhood I could probably switch up ver to just Reed and be alright, but the thought of of Avocados throughout the year on one tree is pretty nice.

Thanks!

I have some honey kiss seedlings I’m growing. I know it’s supposed to be a low vigor variety, but it’s growing quite quickly. Interested to see how that turns out, seems like it wouldn’t be a great SoCal mango, slow growing and late maturing, but let’s see!

MoNLA,

The Sunrise was under ripe so it would not be fair to rate that one.

K-Rimes, we’d love to have you and others join as well. We just have to find a place big enough for everyone interested.

Victoria Ave, we will keep you in mind if we have another tasting down here. One of the easiest ways to get invited is to be a contributor of Mangos.

Thanks Coconut Cream, I was just a participant at this event so it was our great host along with Frank, Warren and a few others that did all the hard work.

Yeah I would be interested in contributing and attending and possibly bringing multiple seedlings for swapping. However, I’m out here in Riverside and just ate my last mango from this years harvest. We had a hot summer

Let you seedling grow large before grafting. I read so much about how vigorous Valencia Pride was and was looking forward to soon having a twenty food massive mango shade tree in SoCal. I even spent a bunch of money and bought a 8’ tall 25gallon tree and it has been getting smaller and smaller each year. Even grafted onto my Manila it is growing slowly. Florida vigor and SoCal vigor are something totally different.

My Manila which was planted against the NE side of my house in 2021 is absolutely loaded with fruits right now. The grower I purchased this from said it’s true Philippine type and I believe it with the large size already and pointed nose. Much different than the SoCal Home Depot Manila I’ve seen.






I did multiple grafts on it and this sweet tart graft took off great and is holding a good amount of fruit too








This is the tree last May, explosive growth



My Manga espada was planted same time under similar conditions and is holding not mad many fruits but still quite a few and quite larger. They are kind of ugly looking but are supposed to have medium fiber and great flavor and commonly used for juicing. Excited to try!



I don’t have current photos of the overall tree on my phone but it has blown up significantly as well.

Both show promise as rootstock and I’m excited to grow out seeds, and I hope the fruit is good enough to not even bother grafting (although both have like 4 varieties on them already, I guess I’m a little too eager)

I would caution against purchasing. I purchased last year and fruits arrived underripe and did not ripen properly. I reached out because I was very interested in the Zill varieties listed and to confirm the quality. I was given a discount which I appreciated so I placed an order. I was never given a tracking number or confirmation of shipping and as a result had no idea where my package was and the building manager found it in the big mail box days after arrival.

When I opened it there are a few fruit spoiled, I don’t know if it was from sitting or what o. That end as I didn’t get till today, but more importantly there were none of the varieties I was expecting aside from sweet tart. I like sweet tart but tried many last year and have a lot of grafts and seedlings, I was excited for the other poly Zill varieties listed orange sherbert, m4, coconut cream, sugar loaf. I did get two p22, then a cotton candy, 2 Angie’s, 1 fruit punch which feels like liquid in the skin, and 6 sweet tarts.


So use caution and your own judgement. I’m a bit bummed I didn’t get what I was expecting but still excited to try Florida mangoes without a trip there.

TAF and Alex have consistently provided quality fruit and budwood, over the course of many years that I have known and done business with them. Gotta wonder about grafting skills. The other thing, grafting can be hit or miss depending on many variables, not just quality of budwood and skill of grafter. Get you a veggie slicer!

Let me start by saying I’m not bad mouthing anyone, I’m sharing my experience.

I would question my grafting skills as well if it weren’t for the 100% success rate I’ve had this year with bud wood from other sources. I think it has something to do with transport in the wet paper towel and the very hot weather. Most scions I’ve received from TAF arrived in the conditions below






Having black and dark marks along their length and having stems looking not great. I trim away to where it looks best and graft to failure. These were Valcarrie

However with this same order the below Pickering scions arrived, uniformly green, nice bend to them and healthy looking cambium and innards.



Unsurprisingly to me the valcarrie failed and the Pickering, Im happy to say, has healed and is pushing new growth. These were my favorite mono embryonic mangos I tried this year so I really wanted them in my collection. Hopefully I can get valcarrie to stick next year.

Maybe it is my grafting skills, but I do find I have a very high success rate with uniformly green crisp scions instead of musty ones.

I’ll message Alex and see if he could possibly offer wrapping in buddy tape or paradigm for shipping to CA as scions I have received that way seem to hold up well.

I will keep in mind the hydrating method mentioned here

I too took the opportunity of throwing out organic fertilizer pellets under all my trees so they would water in well and have about 9 fresh scions on. Hoping for a nice explosion of growth

Sorry to hear Brad.

The wind is just starting here in riverside. Been just steady rain all day till now. Palm Springs is at quite a bit more. Pretty wild.

Commercial mango growing happens out where they are experiencing the worst of the storm and I haven’t seen the Keitts in stores yet. I’m worried about my mangos splitting hopefully their crops are ok

Though I wish I owned coastal property the one solace I take in the Riverside heat is that my mango trees love it. Trees that are holding fruit are on their second flush of the year and trees not holding fruit are on their fourth.

I have several sweet tart grafts I did this year that are on their second flush, so hopefully I will have my very own in two years

Quote from: Oolie on July 12, 2023, 01:30:38 PM

Quote from: MadFarm on July 12, 2023, 10:54:41 AM

I have read this whole thread, and much else on this topic... I must have missed something. Can a mango trees' female flowers be pollinated by its own male flowers? If so, even if the seed was mono-embryonic wouldn't it be almost true to type? Or is self fertilization what makes poly-embryonic seeds?

https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=12030.msg365771#msg365771

Yes, self fertilization is possible. No it does not necessarily almost true to type, if that were the case, seedlings of monoembryonic Indian mangoes would be planted instead for the fruit instead of being grafted. Grafting changed mango cultivation forever when it was introduced to India. And mangoes often have perfect flowers, so the same flower could conceivably pollinate itself.

The link will take you one page back where the cause of Poly seeds is mentioned.

Thank you for the response. To be more specific, let's say there was a grafted specimen of a known monoembryonic cultivar in an isolated environment away from any other trees and it flowered and was self pollinated by whatever means of insect or hand and it produced fruit... why wouldn't the seeds be genetically identical?

What you are asking makes sense if you are looking at it that the male and female would be genetically identical in a mono plant and they would combine together to make a totally identical combination.

My (far removed) biology and botany classes would state instead that they are both brining their own sets of genetics and bashing together into a unique new combo of which there are many. Some might be close, some might be radically different. Like parents, their children and siblings.

The poly seems turkey unique because in there there is that genetic mashup, but along for the ride are clones.

I can’t vouch for everything I’m saying here being correct, but I do believe in simple terms that is what is happening.

So even in a Bubble, or large mono crop orchard, that Kent seed is still going to be a wild card!

Valencia Pride holding a good amount of mangoes getting finger size. Last year only harvested 4 hoping to double it this year. Have a few panicles on it right now so maybe a late season hold.










Mallika tree second year in the ground, thinned fruits to only branches I didn’t want to grow any more for now, or where growth was occurring above fruit. It’s still tiny but healthy flushes and holding fruit so we’ll see




Sweet tart scions out on a few weeks ago are really pushing with this heat as well as my other seedling flushing great with the heat