Shield Budding the Mango.
The one defect in the Pound method of shield budding the mango described in Bureau of Agriculture Bulletin No. 18, The Mango, consists of the necessity of placing an apron to protect the long petiole left on the bud from the sun and the entrance of water, which work necessarily requires more time than if the bud could be wrapped as is the case in budding citrus trees. However, a possible use of scarred or nonpetioled budwood as a means of obviating the need of the apron was suggested in the above-mentioned publication. The results obtained in recent experiments conducted at the Lamao experiment station (November and December, 1914) have fully come up to the expectations of this modification, and if the work is carefully performed, the operator should have no trouble in obtaining 85 per cent of live buds by proceeding in accordance with the following directions:
(1) Select budwood that is well matured, from the first, second, and third flushes from the end of a branch. This budwood is always green and smooth.
(2) Three weeks or more in advance of the date when the budding is to be performed, cut off the leaf blades of the budwood selected. This causes the petioles to drop. When the scars left after the petioles have fallen are well healed the budwood is in condition for budding.
(3) The buds should be cut about 4 centimeters long, with an ample wood shield, and inserted in the stock at a point where the bark is green and smooth like the budwood, not where it is rough and brownish.
(4) Use waxed tape in tying and cover the entire bud.
(5) When in the course of two to three weeks a good union has formed, unwind the wrapping so as to expose the leaf bud from which the growth is to issue, and cut off the top of the stock 10 to 15 centimeters above the bud.
(6) Every ten days after unwrapping the buds go through the nursery and carefully rub off all stock sprouts in order to force the buds to grow.
All other precautions that are taken in ordinary shield budding must, of course, also be attended to in order to insure success.