A couple of weeks ago, I went to our local green market to buy some fruit and vegetables. I noticed these yellow mangoes and wondered what they tasted like, so I bought four. Let me tell you, they were some of the best tasting mangoes I've ever tried. I kept a couple of the seeds outside and planted them in containers.
A week ago, I also bought some Ataulfo mangoes from Costco. I find it hard to throw away any seeds, so last night, I took a steak knife and carefully carved away the sharp edge on the one side of the seed. I then split the seed open to reveal the embryo inside. I've read somewhere that these mangoes are supposed to polyembryonic, but these ones only seem to have one seed inside. I am going to plant these and see if they sprout. I know it may take 7 years before they'll fruit, but so what, I have most of the trees/fruits that I want planted, so I'll just grow these in containers until they're ready to be planted in the ground. I may even decide to take out some other shrubs / trees that don't fruit or taste well.
It's always fun to experiment. When I think of Mangos I remember the HUGE trees growing wild on the Big Island of Hawaii. And oh so delicious.
ReplyDeleteGood luck.
I feel compelled to plant any seed I find, too bad I don't have even more space to grow all the avocados I like.
ReplyDeleteThe Valencia Pride mango tree can grow into a humongous tree if not pruned. I saw one at Excalibur Rare Fruit Tree nursery that must have been 60 feet tall and probably even wider.
FYI... Mango cultivation is a bit more complicated than planting a seed (grafting is necessary). Please see this site for more info...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mangotreeman.com/mango_trees.htm
Mangotreeman,
ReplyDeleteMost of our excellent cultivars we have today, were chance seedlings. When you plant a poly-embrionic seed (the ataulfo mentioned here, is poly-embrionic), you are almost guaranteed to have an exact clone of the parent plant. Even when planting mono-embrionic seeds, chances are still good that you will still get a very good quality fruit, since the parents of that seedling are most probably all excellent fruits - that is especially true here in South Florida, where so many excellent mango varieties have been bred (from seeds).
http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/growing-mangoes.html
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/homefruit/mango/mango.html
so how are these mango trees now?
ReplyDeleteThe Mango tree grew very well and was about 8 feet tall. A papaya seedling sprouted next to it and I let it grow.
ReplyDeleteIn the last tropical storm, almost all the papaya trees were blown over, this one snapped the taproot of the mango tree and almost 4 years of experiment is ruined. I've since planted a yellow jaboticaba in its place.