Very interesting Tomas,
at first I was thinking April 1rst had already passed but the pic is interesting. Gives hope to all of us hard headed individual trying to grow mangosteen in pots. Looks easy. :)

thanks for the glimmer of hope,
-Ethan

I think it is more of a climate thing than anything special that he is doing. Jay posted a pic a few years ago of a grafted one he has in Thailand that was flowering. I am not sure if his actually held the fruit, but location definitely matters.

That plant looks so small! I wonder if the gardener growing that plant used any synthetic hormones to induce flowering?

John is absolutely correct. So many variables are involved. Did the branch used in grafting ever produce before, good sized seedling to start with, climate. As John mentioned, several newly purchased plants bloomed and started developing a few fruit. They were all recent grafts and obviously from a very prolific branch. None of the fruit stayed to maturity and none have fruited since. I believe it was all stored up in the branch just prior grafting. I suspect this one in the pic is similar. And a very BIG good luck on finding a grafted plant in the states. The guy from Thailand has them for sure. As slow growing as they are, it would be a tough plant to recover from bare rooting.

Tomas

Temps a big big factor..
I've never been to another tropical country (but I'm sure it's similar in every tropical country), in the Philippines it feels like you're inside a greenhouse(wet) in the highest temps of Summer... even at night... and the area between your back and the bed feels like an oven, since my family there doesn't have ac(just to illustrate the temps). My grandma cuts up old jugs and plops dirt from the field and a Calamansi seed will be fruiting in no time, obviously as Jay said, a Mangosteen needs more nutrients and grafted is important, but it's crazy how essentially you can bonsai a fruit tree in the tropics and get fruit...

:)

Hi tropicaliste,

Yes, my temptation to try the same will probably cool off quicky once I start thinking a little more practical.

Tomas

I wasn't trying to persaude you to not get one if you can :) since you're in FL you have a good chance of fruiting one as long as you can create a similar microclimate box type set up and those tips provided by your friend are valuable tips regarding Mangosteen.

:)

I wonder if you could take a mangosteen and do a "bark inversion" on it? Basically you take a ring of wood off the trunk and put it in upside down, dwarfing the tree.

You could also take a mangosteen while its still young and make a loop with the trunk...yes...a loop or overhand knot... this will force it to fruit earlier, stay dwarf. It works on apples, although I'm unsure how flexible a young mangosteen trunk would be.

Get to work guys, lets see some results.

jay- remember though, the seedling mangosteens we saw were doing so much better than the grafted ones in the same field

Very true Gerry, very true. However...no way in hell are you going to find a large seedling plant...let alone one that could be shipped.