I'd say your chances are pretty much zero if I am understanding what you are thinking correctly.

I would love to respond to your question.....but I do not understand it. Could you re-phrase it? Are you asking about mango, cacao or both? Are you thinking of grafting, airlayering, or rooting a cutting or all three?

Harry

I'm asking about two different plants -- a small cacao and a meedium-sized mango. I need to transport them within small containers, smaller than the size of the plants. I'm looking for any method to do this. For the cacao, I was considering cutting it then re-grafting it at the destination. For the mango, even that wouldn't work, as it'd still be too big; hence I was asking about other alternatives.

@jsvand5: Could you care to elaborate on why it wouldn't work (and which case you're talking about not working)? In the case of cutting then re-grafting the cacao tree, for example, is it that cacao trees don't take to grafts well? Or is the plant too small for a graft?

Either of these trees would be fine to be severely pruned back to the size that is good for travel. They will both recover quickly. Grafting would be very diffcult and would not, in liklihood, provide you any real benefit.

Harry

I like Harry's idea - I think you can cut the mango tree back to say 4-6 inches above the current graft line if you had to, and perhaps the same length on the cacao tree from its roots. But try to make it longer if you are able to . . . .(obviously)

Grafting this time of year, unless you're in a tropical climate where it's consistently warm, would be a huge risk.

Yep, the old chop-chop sounds like the way to go!

Good luck, Ms. Karen...

mangomuttley

I raise my tropicals indoors; I'm in a climate that's too cold for them outdoors. The cacao especially seems to love growing indoors (the mango seems to merely tolerate it)

So you think they'd survive basically being trimmed down to a stump, so long as it's above the graft line? Huh, I wouldn't have thought of that -- thanks. :) And with the cacao, perhaps I'll try to see if I can bend it into a more compact shape. I was afraid to do that before because of the risk of breaking it, but if outright cutting it off is okay, then I could always do that if the stem broke.

Thanks!

Also, if I did attempt to graft, do you think it's more of a situation that it would be unlikely to work, or that you think it might actually hurt the chances of the plant's survival versus just a bare stump?

It wouldn't hurt the chances of the tree itself surviving but I don't think there would be any advantage to trying it. When you graft things you only use a few buds to graft to the rootstock. You can't graft whole branches.

Thanks, everyone. :)