We have many types of trees in our “edible plant nursery” that benefit from being grafted, such as grapefruit, avocado, oranges, limes, and especially mangos. When grafting a tree, we use a common, hardy rootstock and then graft growth from a tree with known good characteristics to it. By grafting the two trees together, we combine the best characteristics of the two trees, like heavy fruiting, large, delicious fruit, or ripeness at different times of year.

We continually keep grafted trees in our shade houses and frequently start new ones. Last week, during the national celebration for Labor and Agriculture Day, we gave out 13 grafted mango trees. Even though Haiti has more than 100 varieties of mango trees, we focus on four that are very popular in Haiti: Francique, JanMarie, Madame Blanc, and Miska.

Francique is one of the highly prized trees, and its large, juicy, delicious fruit has made it the National fruit tree of Haiti. JanMarie fruits early in the season and often gives two harvests per year. Madame Blanc is a heavy mid-season producer, and Miska’s smaller fruit ripens in late season.

One reason we graft these varieties is so we can extend the harvest time. Now, we are planting new mango seeds to make more rootstock for future grafts. We would love to be able to plant 100s of good Mango trees each year. Who doesn’t love a good mango?

Thank you to those of you who support our Sustainability programs so we can help provide “food for a lifetime.”

Rad Hazelip, Assistant Executive Director