I bought my first mango tree from a local nursery last September 2013, it was less than 50 cm tall. It was a grafted tree of a local species called Harum Manis (literally translated into Sweet & Fragrant). I asked the guy at the nursery, how long would it take to start fruiting. And he answered about a year! I could hardly believe him, a dwarfie tree like this would fruit in a year? I just smiled and thanked him.
Later at home, I searched the internet, and to my surprised, the source said that at least it takes 3 years for a grafted mango tree to start setting flowers and fruit. To be honest, I was a little disappointed. Though I didn't buy what he said, but I somehow really wanted it to be true... :-D
My mango tree continued to grow and got taller. So one day in spring, when my mango tree started to grow unsual shoots, I was very intrigued. I wait and voila! It set flowers!! Just in about 7or 8 months! My jaw dropped! The guy was RIGHT!! Yippie!!
Since mango doesn't need a hand pollination, I let the nature do it's job. The wind, the insects, everyone was busy doing the task for me! It sets hundreds of small flowers and many I believe got pollinated, but in the end the nature will also screen those which are not well-pollinated. They will eventually dropped from the trunk.
The monsoon period in the Summer brought a lot of rain and high speed wind. That caused many of my baby mangoes to drop since the pot sat in the way of the wind. That's a very hard lesson to learn. Any fruit trees shouldn't be exposed to a lot of wind (especially strong one). It will cause a lot of stress for them and will cause the fruit to be aborted by accident. So, I move it instantly to a spot where it is more protected from strong wind.
Only 5 mangoes survived this season, but it was already amazing given the size of the pot which is only size 5.
