I saw Timotayo and Gold Nugget mangoes at Home Depot and was about to buy both of them until I noticed the grafts. They are cleft grafted really high, about 4 feet up. I didn't get them because I wanted to chop them down to about a foot and have them sprout lower branches since they are going to remain in containers.

After I got back home I hated not getting them because I really don't want tall containerized trees. Then the idea occurred to me to regraft the rootstock onto itself. Do self grafts have a higher success rate than grafts from another tree? I thought that I could remove about a two foot section of the rootstock and regraft its top portion to the bottom. Will the original top graft be jeopardized if its rootstock is grafted back onto itself?

Should I get these trees and regraft them onto themselves? The scions are about 3-4 inches long so if I re-wrap it in parafilm there's no guarantee there'll be enough buds to sprout from or that the scion will survive another wrapping. If it fails then I'm stuck with an unknown rootstock.

You will have to remove at least 98% of the canopy to have a good chance of success when you do such grafting operation. You need to remove the evaporation demand because your graft union wouldn't be able to support such massive flow of water to the canopy. I would then do a whip and tongue graft on such scheme after removing 2 ft section. I would also back it up with bridge grafting after cutting the whole 2 foot section of the tree trunk, all to maximize flow and chances of union. You can also do a banana graft. The graft union would be weak, so be sure to prop it up for a long time.

The fact that you are grafting rootstock to rootstock doesn't matter much in your case and I wouldn't recommend doing it because of the low survivability and the resulting weaker trunk. But I am not saying you shouldn't attempt it. You could be more successful than I did with my tree rose which I removed a section of the trunk, but then the whole top got blown away literally by strong wind gusts.

If the trunk is not that big, I would either do several chip or T-budding lower down to the desired level. The only disadvantage is that for trunks that are woody, most of the time, even if you get the buds to take, they would be swallowed by the trunk during healing, without even sprouting, unless you chop off the top part at the proper time.

Maybe chip or T-budding may be the way to go. I'll have to go back to see if there is enough buds to extract. The scion was only a few inches long so I'm not sure how much I'll have to work with. The trunk is about the thickness of my fingers, not too woody if I remember correctly.

Due to the limited space, would using more than one chip or T-bud be recommended if its available? I want to enhance my chance of success so I'm thinking I may have better odds with more buds.

Is now an ideal time for grafting mangoes or should I let the scion grow and graft at another time of year?

Sorry, I misread and misunderstood. You were grafting mangoes instead of citruses... The answer is a bit different. I'll get back to you on that.

In the meantime, does anyone have some advice?

Mangoes grow really slowly in California compared to tropical places. I would not recommend pruning very much, if at all. Secondly, Gold Nugget is a later variety (I don't know about Timotayo's season). For CA I think you need an early variety because they won't ripen very fast. Try #1 Carrie, #2 Glenn if you can get your hands on them.

I already have a Carrie. The Gold Nugget and Timotayo just became available at our local Home Depot. I've never seen them here before. That's why my interest in them. Since they are available and inexpensive I thought I'd give them a try but they were grafted so high and I want low bush type containerized trees, thus my post on the subject.