I always hunt out some prime mangos in season here, Im not always able to positively identify them but I will keep you updated,

Is it better to dehusk them before shipping?

sorry wrong thread.

mangos will develop a spiraled tap root when pot bound. this will eventually have to be pruned or repotted. dwarf trees should be able to stay in a 25 gallon for a long time but your Lancetilla will eventually outgrow one.

Andrew, this is an excellent question and one that I will eventually have to cross, luckily when I repotted my Glenn from a 20" to a 24'' the root ball looked fine. The roots on this particular mango tree was much smaller than I thought it would be ( which for me was a very good thing). Actually, I was pleasantly surprised at how slow the roots spread. I'm going to repot this tree again in summer after the fruits are picked, assuming the blooms fruit, holds and matures that is. Since I'm going to a bigger pot this will buy me a few more years before I have to worry about root pruning. By then, maybe the real estate market will have improved and I can move a couple of hours south and I can just plant it in the ground,lol...

You might want to ask Al in the Container forum...you know he's the expert when it comes to pruning roots. Even still, like you the whole process scares me. I just know I will do it wrong and kill the tree.

I'm hoping someone here has already done it and can share the exact step by step instructions with 'pictures' would be even better!

What's the longest(how many years) has anyone grown a mango in a pot? Inquiring minds want to know...

Andrew, though it may benefit the tree immensely to root prune, I am too scared to do it too. I have so far upgraded pot sizes rather than bite the bullet and root prune. There are some experienced container growers in the fig forum and the fruits forum who grow exclusively in containers and they seem to root prune the more mature trees without any impact. You might want to post your question there too.

Hi Nanci,
I emailed Jay regarding this and he told me that he dissagreed with Al's root pruning time frames. I am just going to hold out until it becomes necessary. I cannot believe that a mango tree would lose it's vigor after one short year. Now that I think about it, I believe he was talking in general terms.
I have that Atualfo seedling that I am going to experiment with today. It needs a larger pot and I am going to try and remove about half of the tap root and see what happens.

Hi Ashley,
I have tried posting to some of those other forums before. I even emailed Al and both ways got me no where. No one answered my post on the fig forum, and container forum, and Al didn't answer my email. I emailed him about Fig varieties and he ignored it.

Sad to say but I have found that on some of those forums, if your not a "regular" poster there, they tend to not answer you.

Hey Mango kush,
I actually wouldn't mind if you sent me some mango seeds of varieties that you find to be superior. I have one seedling that I hope will bear fruit before I am an old man! I also really would like to try my hands at grafing mango seedlings. I really like the Maha Chinook mango, and I would like a second tree but it would be much nicer if I could try grafting it myself. Now I know that Harry has found it to be challenging but it would still be an awesome journey and hopefully some day I will get one to take!
Andrew

I have not root pruned a mango tree except once when I transplanted a seedling from its cup to a gallon pot. I removed all but about an inch and a half of the tap root. There were a few feeder roots left on the upper part of the remaining tap root. The baby mango died. But I have successfully root pruned a fig. I followed the instructions on the fig forum: to remove the bottom 1/3 of the root ball and about 1/3 of the remaining root ball by removing 3 or 4 wedges spaced equidistant around the root ball. The fig was invigorated and bore more fruit. However, figs have exceptionally vigorous roots. I cannot say how this would translate to root pruning a mango.

Cath

And figs grow from cuttings easily....mangoes, not so much. So, there is much more danger of killing a mango with imprudent pruning than a fig.

Harry

andrew - Like you, I don't like mucking about with my mangoes. Recently, I worried a lot about pruning down my trees because they were too tall for my needs but after I "pugged" them I was glad I did.
I also worried about container size when I decided to try my hand with growing potted mangoes. I learned about air-pruning products online and, at the risk of sounding like a marketing tool, may I suggest looking at these sites:
http://www.superoots.com/air_intro.htm
http://www.smartpots.com/smart-pot-air-prunes
http://www.treebag.com/
http://www.randmsupply.com/productdisp.php?pid=688&navid=48

I learned about these products initially from 'Green' and Environmental websites/blogs. Although, I've only had my trees in fabric containers a short while, my plants seem to be happy in them.

Here are my two Young/Tebow in Gro Pots (they've been in these pots the longest of my bunch):

These are not my pictures but I found them online...

Picture of Carrie Mango planted in a 'Super Root' Air-pot:

Picture of Mallika in same type of pot:

Picture of Pine Island's use of Smart Pots for their larger trees (this is a screen grab from their video):

Good luck.
Rob

I partially bare rooted and root pruned pretty much all of mine last season. All did fine aside from a little julie that I was a little too aggressive with. The julie had a really screwed up root system and I took too many of the roots off. It did end up surviving though after a period of die back. It is now loaded with little fruitlets. Hopefully it will hold a few.