Mango

Mango (Mangifera indica) is the tree most Pakistani growers already dream of planting, and for good reason: a single mature grafted tree in the Punjab plains or Sindh coast can return hundreds of kilograms of the country’s most loved fruit every summer, from a species that also hands you shade and, eventually, useful timber.

Where it thrives

Mango is a tropical-to-subtropical evergreen that suits the hot Punjab plains and Sindh coast and adapts to a wide range of soils, from sands to heavier ground, provided drainage is good — it will not tolerate waterlogging.¹ Mature trees take brief dips toward -4°C with only leaf and twig damage, but young trees are killed near -2 to -1°C, so frost-prone pockets are out.¹ It flowers from roughly December through April and ripens from May into September, with the main crop in June and July — squarely the Pakistani mango season.¹ It demands full sun for reliable cropping.

Role in the system

In a food forest mango is a long-lived climax canopy tree — the dominant, broad-crowned overstorey that defines the upper layer and shades everything beneath it once mature. You site it for decades, give it space, and design the guild in its shade and beyond its drip line. It is wind-pollinated and insect-pollinated by thrips, flies and, to a lesser extent, bees, so a flowering guild that supports those pollinators feeds the crop directly.¹ Its main quirk as a canopy anchor is biennial bearing — a heavy year followed by a light one — so plan the system’s harvest calendar around an uneven rhythm rather than a flat annual yield. Because it casts dense shade and roots widely, treat the area under a mature mango as a shade-tolerant understorey zone, not prime cropping ground, and let the tree hold the climax stratum while shorter fruiters and support species fill the layers below.

Growing it

Always plant grafted, named cultivars, not random seedlings — grafting fixes the variety and brings fruit far sooner. The propagation detail worth understanding: many mango types are polyembryonic, meaning nucellar seed produces seedlings genetically identical to the mother, which is why polyembryonic stock makes uniform rootstock for grafting.³ Rootstock and interstock choice measurably shifts tree vigour and architecture, so the right combination can hold a tree compact for high-density planting or push it vigorous for a standard orchard.² Three decisions decide success: choose a cultivar and rootstock matched to your spacing, give vigorous types 8 to 10 metres and compact ones less, and graft in warm weather for the best take.¹

What you get

A mature grafted tree yields on the order of 100 to 150 kg in a good year, harvested across the May-to-September window, with the fruit eaten fresh, pulped, pickled green, and dried.¹ Mango is Pakistan’s flagship summer fruit with strong fresh-market and export demand, and the timber is a secondary return at the end of the tree’s productive life.

Sourcing notes

Buy grafted trees on suitable polyembryonic rootstock, and if you graft your own, growers rely on a single-bevel grafting knife and parafilm grafting tape. See our guides to grafting mango without tears and using harvest cycles as a design input.

Sources

1. Crane, J. H., Wasielewski, J., Balerdi, C. F., Maguire, I. (n.d.). “Mango Growing in the Florida Home Landscape (HS2/MG216).” University of Florida IFAS Extension.
2. Jain, et al. (2025). “Influence of different rootstock-interstock-scion combinations on mango (Mangifera indica L.) traits.” Frontiers in Plant Science.
3. Ali, G. S., Eltaher, S., Li, J., Freeman, B., Singh, S. (2025). “GWAS identifies a polyembryony locus in mango: development of KASP and PACE markers for marker-assisted breeding.” Frontiers in Plant Science.