Back-Crossing of Superior Hybrids ‘Sonpari’ and ‘Neelphonso’ with ‘Alphonso’ Mango (Mangifera indica L.)

The study was carried out during 2012–13 cropping season to find out the ability 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 back crossing was done with Alphonso as donor parent. The results revealed that fruit set was 88.91% in crossed Sonpari x Alphonso and 78.43% in crossed Neelphonso x Alphonso. Fruit retention percentage reduced drastically from fruit set 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%). 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). 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 hybrid varieties in mango breeding programme.