Compatibility of Alphonso pollens with its superior hybrids Sonpari and Neelphonso as female parents in mango (Mangifera indica L.)

An investigation was conducted during the year 2012/13 to find out the Compatibility of Alphonso pollen with its two newly developed superior hybrids Sonpari (Alphonso x Baneshan) and Neelphonso (Neelam x Alphonso) as female parents in hybridization programme. To further incorporate the desirable traits of Alphonso into these hybrids, a new breeding programme was initiated at RHRS, Navsari Agricultural University to back crossing these two superior hybrids Sonpari and Neelphonso with Alphonso as pollen donor parent. The results revealed that fruit set percentage was 88.91 % in crossed Sonpari x Alphonso and 78.43 % in crossed Neelphonso x Alphonso. Fruit retention percentage was reduced drastically from fruit setting stage till 14 days after pea stage (DAPS) but attained almost steady percentage from 35 DAPS onward till harvesting. The fruit retention percentage at harvest was higher in the crossed fruits of Sonpari x Alphonso (3.13 %) compared to Neelphonso x Alphonso (0.94 %). Regarding physical characteristics of crossed fruits, combination of Sonpari x Alphonso produced higher fruit length (13.4 cm) and fruit width (9.9 cm) than crossed fruits of Neelphonso x Alphonso with fruit length (10.8 cm) and fruit width (5.7 cm). Similarly, fruit weight of hybrid fruits derived from crossed Sonpari x Alphonso (512.4 g) was higher compared to that of Neelphonso x Alphonso (235.2 g). The drastic reduction in fruit number retained during the period of fruit set stage to 14 days after pea stage was due to wide variation between maximum and minimum of both temperature and relative humidity. Based on this experiment, pollens of Alphonso showed good compatibility with both Sonpari and Neelphonso and therefore, may be utilized as pollen source for pollination in these two newly developed hybrids varieties in mango crossing programme.