Stomatal Count As an Index for Prediction and Classification of Vigour in Mango Rootstocks*

Twenty three mango rootstocks comprising of 10 polyembryonic and thirteen monoembryonic varieties were screened for the vigour. Stomatal number varied from 8.93 to 17.68 per unit area (10 × 10 X). Dashehari had the highest stomatal number whereas, Kalapady had the least. Polyembryonic rootstocks like Bappakai, Goa and Kurukkan seemed to be dwarfing materials and need to be tried as dwarfing stocks for mango. For proper estimation of stomatal number, the method of leaf sampling was also standardised. It was found that the leaves should be sampled from the top of the second flush i.e neither too old nor too young.