The Latest Maintenance and Management Methods for Grafted Mango Seedlings
In recent years, many gardening enthusiasts have carried out grafting improvements because certain mango varieties have low yields, poor quality, and are difficult to manage, for example improving 'Ivory' into 'Jinhuang'. So how should grafting be done to maintain a relatively high survival rate? Mango grafting is the joining of a scion from a superior variety onto a highly adaptable rootstock (such as the 'Ivory' being grafted), where the parenchyma cells of the cambium of both join the wound and form a new individual.
Rootstocks are grown in plastic bags and grafted directly into seedlings. Field-grown seedlings are grafted, and after the graft survives they are potted in plastic bags for growing on. The latter method usually involves cutting back the rootstock after the graft has survived, and lifting the seedlings for bagging when the scion bud begins to swell and has elongated 0.5 cm. The plastic bags measure 30 cm long and 20 cm wide, and are filled with fertile topsoil or a nutrient soil made by mixing dry cow dung or compost with topsoil at 3:7. After planting the budded stumps, they are placed under tree shade or in a shade shed for growing on.
Grafted mango seedlings should be watered promptly to encourage the scion to sprout, and the rootstock sprouts should be removed once every 3 to 5 days to ensure the growth of the scion buds. Whenever the scion sends out new shoots, pesticide should be sprayed to prevent disease and pests. To protect the scion from being blown or knocked over, a stick should be erected to fix the scion. Other management is the same as for rootstock seedling management.
The management methods for grafted mango seedlings are as follows:
1. Removing rootstock sprouts
After top-cutting and grafting, adventitious buds often sprout below the graft union on the rootstock, so checks must be made once a week and the rootstock sprouts removed promptly so as not to affect the growth of the grafted buds.
2. Re-grafting
Three weeks after grafting, check whether the scion has survived; if it has not, re-graft promptly.
3. Fertilizer and water management
The nursery should be kept moist at all times; it must not dry out, nor become waterlogged, and should be irrigated promptly when dry. One month after grafting, a dilute fertilizer solution may be applied, once every other month; apply fertilizer frequently and thinly, increasing the fertilizer concentration month by month.
4. Shaping
Shaping mango seedlings is also very important and should not be neglected in production. The main branch that sprouts after the graft has survived can be topped at about 20 cm once it has matured, to encourage side branches; when the side branches have grown 15 to 20 cm they should be pinched off, and in turn further side branches are encouraged, so that a crown forms as early as possible.
5. Pest and disease control
The tissues of young seedlings are tender, and planting density is also high, so pests and diseases occur easily, especially the mango shoot borer and anthracnose; therefore, after the scion sprouts, pay attention to applying pesticide to control pests and diseases, using pesticide 2 to 3 times for each flush of shoots.