Low Bark Grafting: How To Make a Dwarf Mango Tree

Mango, the country’s national fruit is considered as one of the finest in the world. It is the third most important fruit crop of the country based on export volume and value next to banana and pineapple. It has an established domestic market and has bright opportunities for the international market both in fresh or processed form. The country’s export variety, The “Carabao Mango” is one of the best varieties in the world.

But in order to harvest enough quantities for commercial purposes, you need to have a large land area to plant the trees. And as we are all aware of, mango trees are big and tall so the the harvesting will require labor cost that might not be feasible or might reduce our profit. And in addition to those disadvantages, harvesting is also time consuming and if we will use pesticides bigger trees will cost you more. So what is the solution then? we have to make trees smaller to reduce the overhead expenses. The following is how you create a dwarf mango tree by the technique of LOW BARK GRAFTING AND PRUNING OF MANGO TREE.

Mango like other tropical fruit trees is propagated by several methods:

* Sexual –through seeds
* Asexual- vegetative methods

Propagation by seeds results to enormous variability in the progenies. Therefore, asexual or vegetative methods are adopted to get true to type plants.

The technique of cleft grafting of mango in the Philippines is very common using tall and overgrown rootstock ( 1 meter high). Now, a new method of grafting is being
introduce called LOW BARK GRAFTING AND PRUNING MAKES MANGO DWARF…

ADVANTAGES OF DWARF MANGO

1. High number of trees per hectare
–India-3m x 2.5 m(1,333 plants/ha)
–Israel-3m x 5 m, 5 m x 8 m(200-600 plants/ ha)
–Thailand-200-600 plants/ha
–Australia-200-1000 plants/ha
3rd Mango Marketing Congress, August 15-16, 2006, Davao City

2. Easier management of trees:
- Pruning
- Pests and Disease Monitoring
- Minimal losses of fruits
- Minimal damage and bruises
- Easier bagging and harvesting
- Efficiency in spraying

So if you wanted to learn how to graft the mango tree, here are steps in Low Bark Grafting:

* Prepare a mango root stock, it’s a mango seedling having a stem big enough to be grafted as shown in the picture below.



mango bark grafting
# Decapitate or cut the stem leaving about 2 to 20 cm from the ground. Make a thin side cut in the bark so that you can insert the scion to graft it in. Take note that this is different from cleft grafting which is the most simplest kind of grafting where the cut is on the center of the stem. In bark grafting, only the bark should be cut to insert the scion. For more info with regards to grafting, follow this link => Grafting and Budding Nursery Crop Plants

mango bark grafting
# Prepare the scion and cut the leaves. Only the stem should be left.

mango bark grafting
# Make a V-shape cut on the end of the scion stem. Insert the scion into the side cut of the rootstock.

mango bark grafting
# Wrap the joint of the rootstock and the scion tightly using a plastic strip.

mango bark grafting
# Decapitate the apex to induce branching. Pinch-off the growing point to induce branching.

mango bark grafting
# After 30 days expose the plants to little sunlight for hardening.

mango bark grafting

There you have it. It looks simple enough but I think the waiting is the hardest part. But after the many months of waiting it to grow, it will look like the picture below. Maybe after six years it will bear fruit and ready for mango fruit production.

dwarf mango tree



Contact Person: Mr. Virgilio Loquias at (082)293-1149 in Davao

Source: hvcc.da.gov.ph (Dept. of Agriculture, Philippines)

Reference: http://www.thefilipinoentrepreneur.com