Morphological characters: efficient tool for identification of different mango cultivars.
Ritu Joshi, Manoj Kundu, Singh C. P.
Author Affiliation: Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar 263 145, Uttarakhand, India.
Environment and Ecology 31 : 385-388
Abstract : Although, India is the largest mango producing country in the world and also is the home of more than 1,000 mango cultivars but the productivity of mango in our country is low. Hence improvement work for the development of mango cultivars with higher yield and productivity is the utmost importance. For successful improvement work, proper identification of genetic resources or the parental materials is the basic need. But the main problem regarding the identification of exact cultivar is the wide range of variability in physio-chemical characters of fruit and the trees of different cultivars under different agroclimatic conditions. Moreover, mango is a perennial crop having a long juvenile period of 7-10 years. So, it is always very difficult to identify a cultivar at the initial stage of plant growth before the plant comes into bearing. If this problem of proper identification can overcome then it will make the mango improvement work much easier. Morphological characters on the other hand, have great role for the identification of different cultivars. By using morphological characters it is not only possible to identify and cultivars well before the commencement of the cultivars to attain bearing stage but also reduces the time period require for improvement programme. Hence, a field investigation was carried out to study whether morphological characters of different mango cultivars significantly differ from each other, by selecting nine mango cultivars of uniform growth, vigor and age. Therefore, morphological characters like plant growth (canopy spread, tree height to canopy spread ratio), bark characters, foliage density and color as well as leaf characters were examined. Experimental results revealed that the minimum canopy spread was found in Amrapali followed by Dashehari while minimum tree height to canopy spread ratio was recorded in Mallika followed by Gulabkhas and Gaurjit. Bark surface, bark color, foliage density, foliage color and different leaf characters also differed from each other. Hence from this investigation it can be said that these morphological characters can be used as an efficient tool for proper identification of different mango cultivars well before the commencement of that cultivar to bearing stage.