Dwarfing a vigorous tree

[Satya]

Summer pruning does dwarf a tree, some. I summer prune my trees about 6-8 times.

I'm planting 1000 trees in my new farm, and won't have time to excessively prune anything. a solution to managing both small backyard trees and large farms. you won't need to prune 6-8 times,

Some of my mango trees are over 30 years old. I have never pruned more than once a year and I often skip a year. I do not see the big deal in just taking off 1/3 to 1/2 of the canopy after harvest. IMO makes no sense to prune 6-8 times a year unless you are sculpturing the tree like at disney making it look like perhaps micky mouse.

IMO a big tree cut low should produce as much fruit as a runt dwarf tree that is probably more susceptible to not surviving those 30 years as a producing tree anyways.

I guess I just never understood this topic or the need for producing a slow growing runt tree that might die with disease before it ever produces fruit.

But then again, I have no problem handling a chainsaw...

following this logic, all grafted trees should be susceptible and die. What makes a tree grafted to itself more disease susceptible? it won't be a runt, it'll just be a leaderless grafted tree. If anything, trimming will give more chances for parasites to attack the tree than one graft, especially in wet climates. Plus, takes so much time when you have many trees. Grove maintenance takes lots of time if you do it without chemicals, and to add trimming to that would mean more days working haha.
Maybe in Florida and especially your property soil doesn't make them grow super tall and wide because of the special pH, sandy nature, whatever; my FL property is entirely coral and trees also don't grow as tall, and in my Costa Rica property mango trees are super compact probably because of high winds, but that's not always the case, especially in the real tropics with ultra fertile soils, as Nef described above.
Thanks for sharing your experience though.

"following this logic, all grafted trees should be susceptible and die." = FALSE

Satya, You have just failed your Reading Comprehension Test......

All = 100 percent = Total amount

This statement "that is probably more susceptible" implies lack of 100 percent probability.... It was illogical by you to say otherwise....

Thank you everyone who participated. I would never be interested in growing if things, norms, rules were fixed. I will continue to experiment, continue to grow even if i fail, even when i feel the process might be faulty, there is always something to learn even from failures. Thank you.

[Timbogrow]

https://thediyoutlet.com/products/36-50-aluminum-drywall-stilts-blue-silver-options
Maybe the solution isn't the tree getting smaller. Lol
Your doing good Satya, keep it up and I'm sure you will find a way to make things work for your needs.

[kapps]

Does interstock grafting work at all with mango’s?  I’ve read some articles where they use it for citrus but with all the topworked trees, you would think that if someone found a dwarfing variety, it would be common knowledge.

[bovine421]

Delighted to hear about your Grand Adventure with your new Farm. What a wonderful laboratory you will have. I say try all the above. Antidotically in another Grove in my Co-op. Piva has seemed to throttle lemon zest. They say lemon zest has a slow launch so time will tell if it truly is having an effect. One regret I have is selling a white Pirie grafted on Piva.

[Greater Good]

Satya,
I know for mangos they will use piva rootstock for dwarfing.
To anyone planning on getting a dwarf tree it’s something to look into.
But of course dwarfing an already established tree is a different story.

Was with Campbell yesterday and you can tell from the frustration in his voice its a crapshoot if it will work with the variety you want to use. Also the fact it takes a long time to get fruit if that rootstock slows it way down.

I have a piva I had Alex graft for me last year. In a few years I will be experimenting with piva and sabra but Im not expecting miracles.

Canopy management is the best option to keep them small.

My thinking is aligned  with your thoughts

[Orkine]

I will like to see this tested.

If it works, there will be a nice biology paper and explanation, after the fact, on why it worked and why we should have reasonably expected it to.
If it doesn't, we will set it aside as a lesson learned / point of knowledge and move on to the next test.

Of the two options, the better one is to test and determine the answer, the poorer option is to avoid finding out because you have concluded that it would not work.

My suggestion for those not interested in trying, stay on the side and watch, perhaps we will all learn something.

[drymifolia]

I will like to see this tested.

If it works, there will be a nice biology paper and explanation, after the fact, on why it worked and why we should have reasonably expected it to.
If it doesn't, we will set it aside as a lesson learned / point of knowledge and move on to the next test.

Of the two options, the better one is to test and determine the answer, the poorer option is to avoid finding out because you have concluded that it would not work.

My suggestion for those not interested in trying, stay on the side and watch, perhaps we will all learn something.

I absolutely agree that things like this should be tested. But when you are testing it, you shouldn't create a video that claims it works before you have the results of your tests. That's deceptive.

[Seanny]

In citrus, grafting a ring of bark from a dwarf variety to a vigorous seedling would dwarf the tree.
Try that.

[cassowary]

In my IMHO letting them fruit young also is another way of naturally dwarfing trees.

thank you Frank, at about what age? I let a couple of my mango trees fruit out of a 15g pot, they had a very nice crop but didn't produce next 2 years, got bad mbbs and I had to hard prune them. But they were nursery plants, probably root bound. Let's see if they will get dwarfed, one of them is Super Julie - a very vigorous tree

Low nitrogen fertilizing along with letting a precocious tree hold fruit early can have a stunting effect. While it doesn't always work, and can also kill a tree, sometime it does have a stunting effect. One of my oldest trees was a Hatcher planted in the ground as a 3 gal. Here is a photo of it 10 years later.



After holding lots of fruit it would only have a few growth spurts before flowering again. It has since been top worked to a Orange Sherbet which, so far, is growing more than fruiting.

Flnative,
I don't have much experience with grafting so don't want to comment on that section of the post.
But I have obesved that our Ackee tree's that started to fruit early are smaller then the ones that started to flower and set fruit later.
Some species seams to not fruit unless the girth is above a certain width. our Marang (Artocarpus odoratissiumus) never fruit bellow 10cm girth. If they are wider then 10 and don't fruit I usually have to correct the environment, soil ammendments, soil moisture, sun exposure etc.
But then for a Artocarpus sericarpus Pedali none have fruited yet and they have a girth of over 30cm. Same age as some of our Marang, growth is faster for Pedalai but still no fruit on Pedalai. Mendi is similar to Pedalai.

Satya, thanks for sharing that Durian image from Jessies place, they look healthy.
I am trying to get my seedling durian to fruit early so that they stay smaller.

[cassowary]

Thanks for publishing that video Satya!
I watched the video and I have similar concerns as Jessie expresses in the video, tall durian and dabai.
I could definetly try this becuase it has high sucess rate and can be done in the field easy. No risk of losing a dabai tree, that's one of my biggest concern with grafting for me, loss of the tree when it is small. Dabai seeds are not easy to come by.
I have a sansapote in the field that is growing well but they aren't to vigorous here so no problem for me with them.
But dabai tree's do put out many shoots when cut so would be hard t graft it to itself, and even sometimes they die when tipped when they are young.
3 out out of 5 times onlt one new shoot comes up for dabai. But with many other tree's you get multiple, like durio for instance.

I can see that cutting of the apex auxin dominat leader would push growth in the remaining growing tips and then they grow away from each other creating a wide tree. But still one tip will try to dominate so have to cut that one even with this method I assume.

I wounder how much it will dwarf a dabi longterm, maybe the graft juncture would reduce sap flow. But it might take longer before the tree becomes mature since the sap flow might be restricted.
The Dabai still have to attain a certain girth I assume. And when I have observed tree it seams that the first branches appear above 3 m, no matter how much sun the tree gets, it seams to be a trait of the Canarium family. Similar with Canarioum ovatum.
I have found that girth is more reliable as a measure of maturity then age. But sometimes that is not the case.

I have one fiji longan pommetia pinnata (Matoa) seedling, that is fruiting at 10cm girth, but no other fiji longan is. So idk what's up with that. Even older other matoa at 20cm with good enviromental conditions arent' flowering and fruiting.
The 10cm girth one is healthy and puts forth good fruit, not fruiting because it's dying etc.