Mango trees for the SoCal masses

[ricshaw]

On November 19th I attended the CRFG Los Angeles Chapter Field Trip – Nursery walk, tour, lecture at La Verne Nursery Inc. (wholesale sales only) located in Piru, CA.

This was my second visit. I previously attended a tour in March 2014 with several Tropical Fruit Forum members.

My main hobby interest is Dragon Fruit, and I wanted to see what is new and hang out with fellow CRFG members.

We met outside the big La Verne temperature controlled, humidity controlled greenhouse.



The tour guide was Daniel Nelson, Director of Operations.



I am sorry, but I did not take notes and my memory is not good on details. I did take some pictures and some of attendees are active on Facebook and may be able to answer detail questions.

[ricshaw]

Daniel said that La Verne is gearing up for avocado growing. There were hundreds of tree pots with soil waiting for avocado seeds.

We found out that La Verne uses Fuerte seeds for root stock.

Daniel talked a lot about citrus, avocado, and mango growing at La Verne.  He mentioned that the demand for mango trees in California has increased.

Daniel said that when they are grafting avocado seedlings, they do about 8,000 — 9,000 grafts a day. When the TFF members toured La Verne in 2014, we got to see the avocado grafting up close.

He said he expects 98% graft success rate with avocados and 95% success rate with mangos. 

There were lots of mango trees growing in the main greenhouse.

[ricshaw]

[ricshaw]

Dragon Fruit expert Edgar Valdivia.

[ricshaw]

More mango trees at La Verne.





Daniel explaining where to cut for grafting scion.

[JF]

The West Coast Pine Island. Very impressive Rick. SoCal is on its way to becoming a mango powerhouse

[Mark in Texas]

Amazing, thanks for sharing.   Interesting that they're using Fuerte as rootstock.  Got to be because they have access to a lot of those seeds.

What type of grafts, cleft?

Thanks

[ricshaw]

Amazing, thanks for sharing.   Interesting that they're using Fuerte as rootstock.  Got to be because they have access to a lot of those seeds.

What type of grafts, cleft?

Thanks

Daniel explained that the avocado orchards that supply the seeds plant 1 Fuerte for every 9 Hass for pollination.
The Fuerte fruit is not picked and left for La Verne to collect on the trees and on the ground.

Cleft and whip grafts.

[Cookie Monster]

Why do they graft so high on the mangos? Here in FL, we tend to graft just above the soil line.

[ScottR]

Wow, nice report with pic's thanks Richard

[alangr088]

Well this looks like it was fun. Was this an open invite?

[ricshaw]

Why do they graft so high on the mangos? Here in FL, we tend to graft just above the soil line.

[ricshaw]

Well this looks like it was fun. Was this an open invite?

For members, friends, and guests of CRFG Los Angeles Chapter.

[fyliu]

Well this looks like it was fun. Was this an open invite?

For members, friends, and guests of CRFG Los Angeles Chapter.

Other CRFG chapters have organized trips. Foothill, LA, and WLA. LA Chapter seems to have made this an annual trip to check out what's new there.

Thanks for the update Richard. Glad to see they're making that many mangoes. One of the small rootstocks say "...entine mango". Are they experimenting with it versus their vigorous manila rootstock? Like sell the plants as "dwarf" or something?

[ricshaw]

Thanks for the update Richard. Glad to see they're making that many mangoes. One of the small rootstocks say "...entine mango". Are they experimenting with it versus their vigorous manila rootstock? Like sell the plants as "dwarf" or something?

There was some talk about new mangos. I don't remember. You will have to ask one of the other participants for details.

[wslau]

Well this looks like it was fun. Was this an open invite?

For members, friends, and guests of CRFG Los Angeles Chapter.

Other CRFG chapters have organized trips. Foothill, LA, and WLA. LA Chapter seems to have made this an annual trip to check out what's new there.

Thanks for the update Richard. Glad to see they're making that many mangoes. One of the small rootstocks say "...entine mango". Are they experimenting with it versus their vigorous manila rootstock? Like sell the plants as "dwarf" or something?

Fang,
LVN is experimenting with turpentine rootstock in CA.
However, our local data from grafted trees already shows Manila rootstock to be generally better (more vigorous, upright growth) than turpentine rootstock in CA.

[Mark in Texas]

Why do they graft so high on the mangos? Here in FL, we tend to graft just above the soil line.

Being that they have such a high success rate doesn't make sense to me either.  Usually one will graft high just in case it fails leaving them plenty of rootstock to work with.

[Bananaizme]

    Now I could be wrong about this, but I think I remember reading in a post that JF posted awhile back that they grafted up high because they determined that when there was a cold event that the coldest portion was within 3 feet of the ground and by grafting up higher that there was a better chance of the graft surviving.

 William

[ricshaw]

    Now I could be wrong about this, but I think I remember reading in a post that JF posted awhile back that they grafted up high because they determined that when there was a cold event that the coldest portion was within 3 feet of the ground and by grafting up higher that there was a better chance of the graft surviving.
 William

At La Verne the grafted seedlings are kept in a temperature controlled, humidity controlled, greenhouse. That is the reason they do not use parafilm grafting tape and part of the reason they have such a high success rate.

[Guanabanus]

Interesting!

[simon_grow]

There's some good info on Mango rootstocks on this thread here http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=20816.msg256074#msg256074

It is important to note that seedling Turpentine rootstocks can perform well over here in SoCal and and it is only certain specific Turpentine rootstocks that have not performed well here. Turpentine is a category of rootstocks that is akin to wildtype and is highly adaptable to saline conditions( in general) and is generally productive.

Simon