Genetic Variability in some Indian Mango Cultivars and Hybrids

Mango is a perennial and highly heterozygous plant. Therefore, it takes a long time to breed a variety in this crop. Information on genetic variability among cultivars and hybrids helps plan meaningful crop improvement programmes. Due to the high heterozygosity, complexity of its flowers and poor fruit-set, the progeny population that can be raised from a cross is very meagre. Hence, there is a need to choose parents that have good fruit-set and show genetic divergence. It would also be interesting to establish if the hybrids generated are truly open-pollinated progenies, or arise from controlled crossing. Basic information thus obtained would help chalk out a potentially successful breeding programme. A study in this direction was carried out by using morphological characters of twelve hybrids and their respective parents. Cluster analysis indicated a relationship between the parents and hybrids. Two major clusters were observed from the clustering pattern. In the first cluster, varieties Dashehari, Banganapalli, Manjeera, Sindhu, Janardhan Pasand, Ratna, Rumani, Amrapali, Neelgoa and Alphonso grouped together. The second cluster consisted of vars. Arka Aruna, Neelum, Arka Puneet, Neeleshan, Mulgoa, Mallika, Arka Anmol and Arka Neelkiran. The hybrid, Sindhu was observed to be genetically closer to Ratna than to Alphonso. The sub-clustering pattern also showed a close relationship between parents and their hybrids. The hybrid, Arka Anmol, was found to distantly placed from the centre (8.54), as also the hybrid, Arka Neelkiran (7.05). 'Sindhu' was also found to be closer to the centre (1.55).