'Tommy Atkins' mango as pollenizer for 'Lily'.
Dag A., Eisenstein D., Degani C., El-Batsri R., Zelig M., Ziv G., Gazit S.
Author Affiliation: The Kennedy-Leigh Centre for Horticultural Research, Faculty of Agriculture, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, P.O. Box 12, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
: 209-216
Abstract : During 1994, sixteen mango cv. Lily trees were enclosed in 8 cages with beehives during flowering in Arava valley, Israel. Two-year-old Tommy Atkins were introduced into 4 of the cages. The presence of the pollenizer Tommy Atkins did not significantly affect the percentage of effectively pollinated flowers, although the number of normal (large) fruitlets/inflorescence was twice as high than in the absence of pollenizer. At harvest, the average number of normal fruits/tree was 4 without the pollenizer, and 14 with the pollenizer. Lily fruits (147) were collected from caged trees and their seeds were extracted and sown. Isoenzyme analysis of the seedling leaves was used to identify hybrids between Lily (ab) and Tommy Atkins (bb). The genotype segregation of 24 progeny from trees without pollenizers was very close to that expected for selfed progeny. The segregation of 87 progeny from trees with pollenizers was very close to that expected for crossed progeny (P0.05). The calculated percentage of Tommy Atkins offspring was 95 in cages with pollenizers, and 0 in cages without pollenizers. The number of flowers carried by the pollenizer plants was negligible compared with that carried by Lily trees. It is suggested that the overwhelming presence of hybrid fruits when trees were caged with a pollenizer suggests a strong advantage for cross- versus self-pollination.