SESSION IV. SELECTION AND HYBRIDIZATION FOR EVOLVING BETTER VARIETIES AND ROOTSTOCKS: INFORMATION ABOUT GERMPLASM IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES - SOME PROMISING MANGO HYBRIDS

Almost all the popular commercial varieties of mango, especially those grown in the northern parts of India are prone to the phenomenon of alternate or irregular bearing. Keeping this point in view an intensive mango hybridization programme was initiated at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in 1961. Till 1968 about 3500 crosses were made using a number of suitable parental combinations. These have yielded 467 hybrids out of which 303 are progressing in the field and are being assessed. The details of this programme are summarised in table 1.

Out of these hybrids 46 came into fruiting at an early age of four years. Two hybrids, no. 49 (Dashehari x Neelum) and no. 59 (Neelum x Chausa) have been found to be very promising, as these have combined the excellent fruit quality of the popular varieties Dashehari and Chausa and the regularity of bearing of Neelum. Salient characters of these hybrids are presented in table 2 and the following paragraphs.