1Division of Fruit Crops, ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru-560089, Karnataka, India
2ICAR-Central Institute for Sub Tropical Horticulture, Lucknow-226101, Uttar Pradesh, India
3ICAR-National Research Centre for Litchi, Muzaffarpur-842002, Bihar, India
4ICAR-Central Institute of Citrus Research, Nagpur-440010, Maharashtra, India
5Division of Biotechnology, ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru-560089, Karnataka, India
6Dr YSR Horticultural University, Venkataramannagudem-534101, Andhra Pradesh, India
7UNEP-GEF/TFT Project, ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru-560089, Karnataka, India
8UNEP-GEF/TFT Project, Bioversity International, Pokhra-11, Nepal
9Bioversity International, Regional Office, New Delhi-110012, India
*Author for Correspondence: E-mail: drmrdinesh@gmail.com
Mango is very widely distributed in India with more than one thousand varieties throughout the tropical and subtropical regions. Most of these varieties are of Seedling origin and are found to be growing as heirloom varieties from generation to generation. Survey carried out under the UNEP-GEF TFT project in the four sites viz., Chittoor, Amravathi, Pusa and Malihabad resulted in the documentation of Seedling types, which showed desirable traits in them. These varieties evaluated in situ, ex situ resulted in indicating the desirable traits, which would help in introgression through breeding. The promising among them were registered. Some of these heirloom varieties can be directly adopted for commercial cultivation. The diversity analysis based on the morphological characteristics showed similar trend as the molecular characterization.
Diversity, Heirloom, Indigenous, Mango, Variability
