A Review on Agro-Morphological and Physico-Biochemical Studies on Mango (Mangifera indica L.)

An important way toincrease productivity in any fruit crop is to first select desirable cultivars from existing variation and to use the superior types for crop improvement programmes. Morphological traits such as fruit and leaf characteristics, branching habit of trees, leaf apex, lobes on the leaf apex and length of the petiole are influenced by environmental factors and caused numerous synonym. Though, there are many improved cultivars under cultivationand anideal cultivar is still lacking globally. Presently, the vast diversity has not been thoroughly exploited either by using them directly or indirectly in the fruit breeding programmes. Further, a lot of indigenous germplasm has been left uncharacterized and a systematic documentation of available variability is lacking which needs attention in the light of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues. Genetic diversity amongst mango offers opportunities to utilize various genomic resources and technologies in an effort to manipulate desirable traits. Hence, systematic characterization, documentation and conservation of the varied gene pool are highly essential for future exploitation.