Here's my Mango tree, still a baby long way to go before fruit lol!! Just transplanted it today...

Is that from a seed? You could be waiting up to 15 years for fruit...... I attended a fruit tree lecture recently and was told that if you want good mangoes, a grafted plant is the way to go.

Dutchlady1 said:Is that from a seed? You could be waiting up to 15 years for fruit...... I attended a fruit tree lecture recently and was told that if you want good mangoes, a grafted plant is the way to go.

YUP!!! From a seed just the way GOD intended it to be!!

Oh, my do you think God intended you to be waiting 15 years to harvest mango fruits from your own tree? Btw, they probably won't taste as good as the one the seed came from, they rarely come true from seed. The seed is probably from a grafted tree, also.

I think He made us (especially gardeners) intelligent and resourceful and that's why we have grafted trees that we can buy from other clever gardeners at a good nursery that will give us delicious fruit in 3 years.

Not sure how they will do in your very dry climate, but give it lots of sun, great soil and feed it well. Then, when the fruit does finally make an appearance, be prepared to fight every critter on the face of the earth for them. Raccoons, mice, rats, squirrels, birds and neighbors . . .

Seedling trees may take five to eight years to grow fruit. Seedling mango trees grow much bigger and stronger than the nursery trees and have an indestructible root system. The seed needs to come from what is called a "polyembryonic" variety. What that means is that the seed will sprout several identical trees. And those seedling trees will be identical to the parent tree. They are clones, the fruit you harvest will taste the same.

Good luck Mark!

So, where'd you get the seed for that tree? Did it have brothers and sisters from the same seed?

I have a 10yr. old mango tree in my back yard dropping fruit right now. If I get a seed that sprouts more than one embryo, does that mean for sure that I will have a clone of my tree, because I'd sure love another one for free. The fruit are absolutely heavenly. I eat one for breakfast every day. But it would be heartbreaking to nurture a tree for 5 to 8 years, then get fruit that was not good.

I've eaten fruit from 'wild' mango trees grown from seed of a tree with good fruit, and the wild ones had small, fiberous fruit with terrible turpentine-y flavor. One of those trees on an abandoned lot out east of us here has grown to pretty amazing size, too. I'll have to take a picture of it next time I drive by. It's a lot bigger than you'd want in your back yard.

Mine's a grafted variety that only grows to a max 25ft and I hope it never gets that big!

This only happens with certain varieties not all mangos!! Mostly Asian and Australian varieties..next time I get one I'll be more than happy to ship it to you so you can plant and experience this for your self!

Thank you Tarev!!!

I love mangoes ..but usually Manila mangoes..yummy! Or mangoes from Guimaras islands.

That's generous of you, Mark but I'll have to decline. The only sunny space left in my yard is over the septic field right now, and until the County sees fit to put the sewer lines into our neighborhood, I can't plant any more trees.

Besides, in a heavy bearing year I already have more mangoes than I can give away. This year, sadly, not so much. We had a late cold snap that zapped a large portion of the blooms.

We currently only have three Mangoes noted as polyembryonic in our database. Most Florida varieties are monoembryonic.
Common Mango (Mangifera indica 'Nam Dok Mai')
Mango (Mangifera indica 'Florigon')
Mango (Mangifera indica 'Saigon')

I agree with Elaine and would recommend a grafted tree. You need to consider size and cold tolerance along with fruit quality. After much research, I went with a grafted Carrie and am happy I did.

Jim

Mine is a 'Carrie' as well. Delicious fruit and a small tree.

I have a fairly large mango tree in the back corner of my yard that I grew from a seed. 10, maybe 15 years old now. It's starting to overhang my 10' tall Marsh Grapefruit, so I have been getting a little tired of waiting for it to bloom. I decided I'd give it one more year. I knew when I planted the seed the odds were against the fruit being any good, so probably no big loss if I cut it down.

Well, the tree must have read my mind. It finally bloomed and set fruit. Three of them. I need to bag them to protect from insects, but there's not much I can do about raccoons or squirrels or bears. Regardless, this is it's last chance. If the animals get them or they aren't really great, the tree is history.

Every mango I see in my neighborhood has bags around the fruit.

I remember in Manila some backyard growers would smoke/burn their yard waste under the mango tree, it apparently induces the plant to yield more blooms to fruit.

That's my whole issue with growing a tree from seed "the way nature intended". If you invest time, effort and most especially garden space in a mango tree for years and years then find out it's not a good producer, or the fruit is not tasty, what a waste.

Buying a grafted tree of a cultivar that you know is good, and that will fruit for you in 3 to 4 years beats the odds for me.

Bagging the fruit doesn't help me a bit, sadly. Insects aren't an issue on mango here. Squirrels are my biggest competition for the mangoes, and they just nibble the stem, let the fruit drop to the ground and they can get into any bag short of a steel mesh one. I found after trying all sorts of scent deterrents, motion scarecrows, fake owls and everything that the best defense was just to walk out there early in the morning and pick up the fruit on the ground. Then through the day I go out about every couple of hours and 'police' the area.

Too cute, Carol. Thankfully the squirrels don't get up in the morning as early as my DH does so I send him out to do the first 'mango patrol'. Unless I nap (rarely) during the day the squirrels seem to sleep when I do.

Now, raccoons are a whole different ball game. Another one came by for a visit last night around 11pm. Arg, set me up for a restless night, that's for sure and I had to get up and give a talk today on Growing Edibles in school gardens. I must admit I don't mind quite so much when the raccoon eats a mango, though - at least they eat the whole thing, not just ruin a nice fruit by eating a couple of teaspoonfuls out of it then leaving it to rot.