Is your mango farm draining your pocket? Try top-working

Mango growers – who have suffered losses due to inferior varieties or inappropriate planting methods like planting at a very close distance – may yet be able to recoup their losses by adopting a tried-and-tested technology known as “top-working.”

Top-working, which is carried out by carving and nailing the grafted seedlings into the trunk of the tree, is fast becoming the wave of the future in mango-growing, thanks to noted pomologist Bernardo O. Dizon who has patented the technology that is now working wonders in many a farm all over the country.

Dizon, more popularly known as Ka Bernie, has been spreading the gospel of top-working since 1995.

Dizon’s technology has turned believers out of cynics, including a number of agriculture officials. One of them is Redentor Gatus, director of the Department of Agriculture (DA) for Central Luzon, whose 30 carabao mango trees nestled in his half-hectare fish farm in Candaba, Pampanga have been successfully top-worked by Ka Bernie six months ago.

Gatus’ carabao mango trees now bear the Thai variety called Chocanan mango. In the future, several exotic fruit trees top-worked by Ka Bernie are expected to bloom in the farm which Gatus is eyeing to transform into a demo farm to promote the fruit tree industry as a top dollar earner for the country.

Dizon’s personal crusade to preach top-working as the gospel of mango-growing has been spurred by the proliferation of fly-by-night nurseries operating in many areas of the country. Without the proper guidance and intervention from the DA, nurseries have been producing inferior varieties.

Dizon has long been sounding the alarm to prospective buyers to buy only superior mango varieties from BPI (Bureau of Plant Industry)-accredited nursery operators and for prospective orchard growers to refrain from buying seedlings from non-accredited nursery operators.     

Aside from inferior varieties, another grave mistake committed by mango growers which Dizon is trying to rectify is the fact that the trees are planted very close to each other. In their desire to sell more of their product, some nursery operators recommend the planting of carabao mangoes at a distance of five meters, which will result in overcrowding, except for some varieties such as “Chocanan” and “Nandocmai” of Thailand.

One of those who fell prey to such close-distance planting was Philippine Air Lines vice president Rolly Estabillo who was convinced early on to plant at five-meter intervals in his three-hectare farm in Rosario, Batangas. After 15 years, the trees grew tall, became overcrowded and yielded little or no income at all.

Estabillo consulted several experts including one who advised him to cut some trees and retain 100 per hectare at a distance of 10 by 10 meters which would effectively reduce to 25 percent the population of his mango tree farm.

Estabillo thought long and hard about the expert’s advice and even consulted his children who urged him to find other ways to make the trees productive.

It was at this point that a friend introduced him to Ka Bernie who immediately went to work by preparing half the population of trees for top-working with Chocanan, Nandocmai or Golden Queen variety.

The other half of the carabao mango population in the farm had been maintained, allowing the standing crown to bear fruits, with sufficient ventilation and sunshine.

While it is still too early to say that Estabillo will soon be harvesting tons of fruit from his mango farm, he now has something to look forward to when he retires from his current job at PAL.