Little Gem
IMPORTANT READ BEFORE Make your Grafting Request Order
We are only able to graft twice a year, Late Spring & Late Summer.
- If we receive the order between after September 24th and before May 1st, The trees will be grafted in Spring & should be ready by the end of the year.
- For orders made after May 01st and before of September 24th will be grafted in late Summer and should be ready in the Spring following year, May most likely.
Only Once the small tree has completed two flushes of growth since it was grafted do we consider it ready to leave our nursery.
(Estimated time is 6 to 8 months. Some varieties take longer time to growth)
Little Gem was a selection from the breeding program of Gary Zill, originally planting number 29-26. It was a Julie seedling, and its pollen parent may have been 'Gary'.
The fruit is small and round, turning orange near maturity sometimes with some reddish blush as well. The skin is thick, and flesh firm but fiber-free. It has a very nice medium bodied Indian/West Indian-type flavor. The fruit have *outstanding* disease resistance. The seed is small and monoembryonic, and makes very nice rootstock.
The trees are low-to-moderately vigorous, compact growers with very dense canopy. They tend to be heavy producers of late season fruit that ripen from the end of July well into August. Little Gem has been one of the more impressive performing later season mangos amongst the newer hybrids, and we now have several of them growing in our program. It is likely a very good choice for backyards anywhere in south Florida as well as commercial groves due to its high productivity and excellent disease resistance.