You can do it, but why would you want to. You have to be paying more in time and money for a grafted tree. Either plant your own seed and graft on it or buy a seedling. Any mango seedling is a decent rootstock as long as it is healthy.

Harry

Mull,

The Lowes Manila seedlings, would be a good choice to graft onto. I have heard the Manila seedlings perform well in hot and dry climates like SoCal and AZ, they may also have a little more cold tolerance then the average mango. I was thinking of grafting on Manila seedlings as well.

okay cool.. so the cleft grafts are pretty easy to do? I could potentially snag a branch off a friends tree and cleft graft it onto these lowes manila's without any great risk?

also on my first quesion.. i have a gold nugget mango that has a higher cleft graft done by laverne, i was thinking i could potentially chop it down a couple feet and regraft it back onto its own rootstock to shorten it up a bit

If I were you, I'd do a side veneer on that gold nugget. That way, if your graft fails you still have your tree. Grafting that mango can be tricky unless you've got some experience with grafting. Your best bet is to plant out 10 or 20 seeds from mangoes you buy in the store. Then when they're a few months old, graft with scions from your gold nugget.

The other way to get a low grafted gold nugget is to buy one from pine island :-).

Jeff

I ordered an mango for a friend coming in from mickey at plantogram which should arrive thursday or friday.

i was thinking I could take a scion from this tree before I deliver it to him and graft it onto the Lowes 3gal manila seedling.. would this technically work? or do i need more prep work on the scion? also would that put the plantogram mango into more of a shock? since i would need to do it right away after it gets to my house before I have to take it over to his place.. and coming from florida to arizona the lack of humidity plus the shipping the tree will automatically be in a state of shock, would taking a scion be too much for it?

Should work fine if you do a good graft. Plenty of people send scion wood all over the country so a plant should definitely be fine. Getting a graft to take without practice is tough though even if you scion wood is in good shape. You would be better off growing your own seedlings so you can grow a bunch and do many grafts to give you a beeter shot at getting a few to take. You should be able to buy the ataulfo mangoes for really cheap right now and they would be fine for rootstock.

Yep, I agree with jsvand. Technically it would work fine. But, unless you have a decent amount of experience grafting mango, chances are that it will fail. Your best bet is to plant out as many seeds as you can find and start practicing on that.

Jeff

Some local nursery or gardner club might might be willing to offer help...just a suggestion.

I also read that Manila rootstock is good for CA.

I think ill give it a shot.. my friend is moving soon so I wont get another chance to get a scion off this tree unless he mails it..

and with the help of youtube i think i can accomplish it, either a cleft of veneer i havent decided.. but its only 20 bucks to attempt (cost of the manila).. and if it fails then i will simply have a pugged seedling manila.. i dont think it could kill the rootstock could it?

You asked about the prep work on the scion. Selecting the correct scion for your graft is probably the most important thing you can do in order for your graft to take hold. Look at the terminal buds on the plant. It's quite possible that you might not have good scion to choose from on the plant. If it's a 3 gallon container plant you will probably only have 3 or 4 terminal buds to choose from. The terminal bud needs be swelling and about to push new grow. Once it's pushed out new growth the scion is not ideal, and it will have a harder time getting established. Since the plant is shipping from Florida if the terminal buds have become inflorences or have recently been cut off for shipment purposes the scion will not be good.

As the previous posters have indicated a side graft is the best way to assure that you can keep the seedling going if the graft does not hold because you only decapitate it once you know the graft held.

I just did half-a-dozen grafts last week; three on seedlings I raised (two Indian-type and one Philipine-type) which were cleft grafts. The other three were onto my in-ground Manila (now about 2.5 years old and reasonably well-branched), one a cleft on a terminal and two adapted veneer grafts on branches close to the trunk as shown here:

http://www.avocadosource.com/Journals/FSHSP/FSHSP_VOL_58_PG_176-180_1945.pdf

I've never done any mango grafting before, so I have no idea whether anything will take. Like avocado grafts, I think it's important to expose a lot of wood, so if you're doing a cleft graft, make the "blade" or chisel cut very long. Wrap very tightly. If you have leaves on your rootstock below the graft, leave them on while the graft is maturing. Keep things warm if possible, but out of direct sun.

As someone already mentioned, the terminal scion needs to be almost ready to pop. For the adapted veneer method it seems you don't even need a terminal scion, but that's what I used.

Good luck!