Vincent, East Bali writes: We are establishing a garden on a steep, wooded hillside. We have many mature trees, including several large mangoes. These have produced a number of seedlings which are 3-4 meters high. Before building, we want to relocate these young trees. So far all have failed to survive. How can we do this successfully?
A steep hillside does present problems. Failure may be due to the depth of top/subsoil before you strike rock. Dig a deep hole in the transplant destination. First is layer of topsoil, not usually very deep on a hillside. Underneath is subsoil – this may also be quite shallow.
Subsoil may be of a heavy, clayey nature, quite gravelly (more likely on a hillside), or decomposing volcanic material. If you strike rock (basalt or granite) within around 50cm, this will be the reason that your transplants are failing. This is not to say that future transplants will fail, but the time taken to re-establish and the level of care needed will be greater.
A 3-4 meter high mango is not a young tree – this is halfway to mature size. What you see above the ground is usually replicated by the root system underground. You cannot dig up the entire root system. Remove 2/3rds. of the top growth – a much reduced root system cannot support a full canopy. Some leaves should be left - they are the plant’s food factory (photosynthesis).
Before digging up the tree, thrust a sharp parang as deep as you can into the soil circling the trunk, to cleanly cut the roots. Lift the tree with as much soil attached to the roots as possible. Sharpen the spades/shovels you use for this so that roots directly beneath the tree are also cleanly cut.
A steep hillside provides very sharp drainage – it is now dry season – certain parts of East Bali are very arid tropics – so water, water, water. After digging the hole, fill it up several times with water until the surrounding area is very wet. If the root ball is wetter than the soil, water will be taken away from roots by osmosis. Water the transplant heavily on a daily basis – twice daily if the weather is sunny and dry.
Support/stake transplants until well established. A little movement of the trunk helps to stimulate root growth. Too much movement breaks the fine, hair-like feeding roots which do great harm to the transplant. A figure 8 loop of a soft elastic fabric between the stake/s and trunk is best. (Old panty hose are ideal for this purpose).
A word of warning about seedlings! Even if the parent trees produce good crops of tasty fruit, there is no guarantee that seedlings will do the same. The majority of seedlings do not produce good fruit. After centuries of natural selection, - the ‘dance of the genes’ means that anything can surface in a seedling.
Occasionally a superior specimen may arise; eg: the Granny Smith apple. Granny Smith, a real Australian lady, used to discard her apple peelings/corings on a creek bank near her house. A seedling eventually resulted - a green apple, excellent eating and ideal for cooking. This was a rare, happy occurrence; even modern hybridists who carefully select seed and pollen parents, excluding chance pollinations, expect a 99% failure rate.
Seedlings can take 7-10 years before they flower and fruit. You may do better to buy 2-3 y.o. grafted trees which will certainly come true to type, and can be expected to bear much earlier. This applies also to Langsat and Citrus. Coconuts are an exception – they do come true to type and it is possible to transplant quite large specimens. (This has been done in Jl. Bypass, Ngurah Rai. I saw the original planting of these trees - about 80% of the leaf growth was removed, the trees were well supported with bamboo buttresses (still in place), the water truck came by at least daily to water them).
Not all Cempaka bloom generously. They are members of the Magnolia family and the large trees (widely grown as a street tree in Singapore) produce more flowers, though flowering is seasonal. I suspect you mean the common small shrub with yellow or green blossoms. I would only bother transplanting specimens known to produce flowers freely. Before doing so, I would take cuttings and plant them in a pot to grow on. Vegetative propagation always exactly reproduces the parent type.
Improve your chances of success by using a root growth hormone. The powder kind is good for cuttings (wet the stem and dip in the powder just before planting). There is also a liquid kind which may be diluted and used on the root ball prior to replanting. I would also apply it weekly to the soil around the transplant for 4-6 weeks.
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