Harry, Thanks for the help. I am going to skip the rosigold for now. I do worry about it finishing its ripening indoors or possibly blooming here inNov-Dec and having a hard time with the fruit holding. I know next year wont be such an issue. I think it wikk between glenn, carrie, and nam doc mai. I had said before that i didn't want the nam doc mai but I am warming up to it. The glenn turned me on after seeing pugs and reading the fruit description. Then there is carrie. How would you rank those three, and would pickering be any better then the three I listed? Carrie turns me on because it is a julie seedling. The description makes my mouth water but I have herad many great things about pickering. Maybe I should just wait a little and try them if possible but I just want to get them in my house and get them growing. My mentality is the sooner I get them the sooner they will fruit. After rereading some posts here I am afraid I will have to remove any fruit that julie holds. I say this now because it isn't activly blooming yet, it will be another story after the julie blooms. LOL!! Andrew

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions. My winter-protection of the seedling trees isn't always perfect, and there is quite often freeze damage on the ends of the branches that are close to the tarps and frost blankets encircling the cages. This system works well for my grafted mangos, because branch length is relatively short, and they can bloom because the branch tips aren't so close to the cage. But on seedling mangos, as you probably know, branches need to be...I don't know...at least six feet in length or more before they bloom. That just isn't possible for me to protect them at this size. Hence, my question about the self-grafting. If you take a branch tip, and move it to the trunk -- I thought that was part of the principle involved in getting a dwarfed tree, and also to get it to fruit sooner? With so much pruning and die-back, my three trees are essentially topped. Main trunks are perhaps three feet tall, and the branches radiate outwards. I know picturing this is difficult for those who have never had to winter-protect and heat a tropical tree! -Bruce

Mike....your theory would be true if the odds of getting better/same/worse were all the same. Remember, the commercial and other selected cultivars are selected from thousands of seedling plantings across the globe. The odds of getting a better, or even an "as good" mango from a seedling is not 2/3. It might be more like 1/1000. Remember, you have to think like a mango. In the scheme of genetic combinations and permutations mangoes change over generations to a way to adjust to potential changes in environment to allow for the survival of the species. Where does delicious flavor and fiberlessness rank as compared to cold tolerance, salt tolerance, drought tolerance....et, etc, etc. That is the question. Of course, a wise man once answered this question with an interesting reponse. He said.....well, if the mango is delicious and fiberless, men that would eat it might be more inclined to plant the seed and thus perpetuate the species. That was an interesting thought but is somewhat wishful thinking in my view. That having been said, has that prevented me from growing and fruiting seedlings? No.....but I am a foolish fruit tree grower not all that much thinking realistically. You are more than welcome on my unrealistic band wagon. There's lots of room. Happy growing and best of luck with your seedling fruit results. Harry

The true of the matter is that I'm fairly new to gardening, specifically new to handling poly-embryonic seedlings, and I'm don't want to kill them. To buy myself sometime, I made an extension for the top so they could stay longer in that environment. The tallest seedling is 9 inches already. It seems to be growing 2 inches per day The 3 seeds in that pot are loving the environment they are currently in, those seed are coming up with a bunch of seedling, should I separate the 3 seeds to different pots before I worry with the poly-embryonic seeds division?