I'm scratching my head on this one. Of course you could graft a mango seedling to another mango seedling, but WHY? What info are we missing? Do you have a reason to believe that one would be a better scion and the other a better rootstock?

BTW, a specie is a type of coin. Did you mean species (but of course all mangoes would be the same species)?

I just don't understand this post/question.

there are quite a few species of mango. and it isn't always a given that a species can be grafted to its own.
I'm not an expert on mango's or grafting so I can't advise further.
Maybe foolishpleasure just wants to try it?

Perennial_gardener_2

OK, maybe I jumped the gun a little on the different species. There are a few other species with "mango" in at least one of their common names, but generally Mango refers to Mangifera indica. Most other species of the Mangifera genus are more commonly know by other names.

And, if you will bother to read what I wrote, you will see that I asked why. I didn't say it wasn't a good idea or that it was something that shouldn't be done. Is there something wrong with trying to understand the reasoning behind the question????

OK I read an article written by mango expert. She indicated that mango trees raised from seeds alone produces lousy tasting fruit. It has to be grafted to mix the DNA. She further stated that if you have ungrafted Mango tree be a good citizen and get your chain saw and remove it. She further stated that cutting does not work with the Mango because cutting produces a very weak root system in mango. She kept saying to have a Mango tree you have to raise it from seed and when the main branch reached 1/2-3/4 inch diameter do the Grafting.(I know how to Graft and I grafted Gala Apple and Delicious blushing Yellow Apple and I have two trees in one and they pollinate each other]
The article continues. Don't get scared by cold climate because you can plant the tree in a pot even small one (4 Gallons) put about 30 holes around the pot using a drill. Holes should be of different sizes 1/4 to 3/8 inch. Block the drainage holes at the bottom of the Pot. Her reasoning was if you don't block the drainage holes at the bottom of the Pot you will need a truck to pull it from the ground. She indicated when you use 4-8 gallons pot to plant your tree and Bary the pot in the Garden it is the equivalent of 34-38 gallons pot. She had a lot of good knowledge in the article but unfortunately she did not elaborate on Grafting. Can I use one seedling to graft the other or I should buy a piece from a nursery. We have in our town a Farmers Market which open 2 days a week I will ask the farmers if they can sell me a branch from their mango.
It takes Time to raise a Mango tree and I don't want to take the risk to saw it later because its fruit is lousy.

Don't you think she meant graft a NAMED variety onto a seed-grown mango? Not graft one seed-grown onto another seed-grown? And FYI, grafting does not "mix the DNA"--the DNA remains the same in each part, the rootstock just provides nutrients to the graft, and vice-versa.

Carla in Sac

I'm afraid you either misunderstood a lot of the details of that article or it was written by someone without subject knowledge. Grafting doesn't "mix DNA". Grafting is a way to propagate a chosen cultivar. In the case where many/most seedlings will not produce highly desirable fruit, scions from a plant of a chosen cultivar can be grafted onto either a specific rootstock or seedling rootstock (like your seedlings) to produce new plants of the chosen cultivar. You are basically making copies of a particular plant that has been determined to have desirable traits (in this case, good fruit).

You may want to look into the container issues a little more also. I won't go into that here/now, but you might consider researching that a little further. I'll bet there are a number of posts about that already if you do a search. You might search both this forum and the Container Gardening Forum.

Foolish Pleasure, what you want to do is to graft a bit of a proven delicious variety of mango onto the roots that you have grown.

You have no idea what your little seedlings might produce for you, so you use their root system and graft on something that has a proven track record.

That means you need to buy or beg a couple of cuttings of a proven variety to graft onto your roots. You are going to end up with 2 nice mango trees.

If you block the holes in the pot, the pot won't drain.

You are right, the roots will grow through the holes in the pot. If they are growing through the holes, maybe the pot is too small.

What I do when I don't want the roots to grow through the holes of the pot and into the ground is to set the pot up on something to keep it away from the ground. Or else keep your pot set on concrete or something that roots won't grow into.

best luck with your project. It sounds like fun.

May be I was not clear. I want the roots to grow through the side holes not the bottom holes. The roots to grow through the side holes is the object of pot burring in the Garden soil. When winter starts I dig a circle around the pot and cut the roots outside the pot with a knife before I take the plant into my Garage. But if you allow the roots to grow through the bottom drainage holes it is impossible to pull the Pot out unless you have Popeye Muscles. As for grafting Mango a lot of posters misunderstood. They are right for Grafting in general. But Mango has and should be grafted or you will get a lousy crop. There are videos and videos about Grafting Mango trees. When you buy a mango tree from a mango nursery, the first thing they brag about "the tree is grafted". Also you don't have to get a different tree from grafting, you can get multiple trees. I grafted one delicious yellow scion on my Gala Apple tree and I ended up with one tree which produces two kinds of Apples.

"Mango has and should be grafted or you will get a lousy crop."

Depends on the plant and what you mean by lousy. Grafting doesn't do anything magic to the plant. It just allows you to propagate a chosen cultivar. A seedling has the possibility to produce wonderful fruit. Remember all cultivars were seedlings to begin with. Of course, the rootstock and scion can affect precocity.

"When you buy a mango tree from a mango nursery, the first thing they brag about "the tree is grafted"."

They are only saying that the trees are of a chosen cultivar as opposed to a random seedling type. Basically, they're saying that you will know what you are getting (a specific cultivar). Again, the grafting isn't doing anything special to the tree other than allowing the same tree (cultivar) to be reproduced.

"Also you don't have to get a different tree from grafting, you can get multiple trees."

Yes, it is possible, at least for many types of fruit trees, to graft multiple cultivars onto a single rootstock. However, there are disadvantages to this method (discussed a number of times in other threads on this forum), and it is not common for commercial production. The single biggest advantage is probably the ability to have multiple cultivars in a single small space.

Hi Brandon7

No argument here. As you know the fruit tree takes lots of efforts and time to develop. I just wants to have reasonable certainty that I am not spinning my wheels in the air and end up with a tree I don't want.

Hi Brandon7
This ia a passage from a book written by Julia Morton who made big business producing and selling Mango and Mango trees. Your comments will be appreciated.
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The civilized grafted mango trees we have now are nothing like the ancient, wild trees whose small fruit tasted like turpentine and had the texture of nylon yarn. The old test of a mango fruit was it's stringiness, it's fiber content. You used to judge a mango by how much dental floss it had. The advent of the free exchange of scientific and agricultural data changed all that. Grafting began to be widely practiced.

Mango fruit from seeds is never the same as the mother tree's fruit. So the seed out of a great tasting fruit will likely produce a tree yielding horrible tasting fibrous fruit. The only certain way to be sure you'll have tasty fruit is to propagate (by grafting, and in some cases cloning) an existing particular, individual tree (DNA-wise) whose quality is proven.

The odds of a seed producing worthwhile fruit are very, very small. Like one in a hundred million.
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