Studies on Floral Biology and Leaf Characteristics of Mango Hybrids and Their Parents

Flowering plays a very crucial role in the production and productivity of mango cultivars. An experiment was conducted to investigate phenological behaviour of mango hybrids and their parents developed at BAU, Sabour. Results showed the earliest bud break in cultivar Sunderprasad on 24th January however, the late bud break was observed in Fazli on 14th February. The cultivar Fazli took maximum time (124.67 days) while Sunderprasad recorded minimum time (92.67 days) from full bloom to maturity. Cultivar Langra showed the higher percentage (74.18) of hermaphrodite flower while a lower percentage (37.60) was observed in Jawahar. The hybrids like Hybrid-60-1, Hybrid 140 and Hybrid 60 were recorded to have more than 50 percent hermaphrodite flowers. Mainly two types of inflorescence shapes were observed viz., conical and pyramidal except for Bombai where the shape of inflorescence was observed to be broadly pyramidal. The maximum leaf length was recorded in Fazli (29.04 cm) and maximum leaf width (9.38 cm), leaf area (132.69) was observed in Alfazli while the minimum leaf length (16.84 cm), width (4.06 cm) was found in cv. Gulabkhas. Mahmood Bahar, Prabha Shankar, Jawahar and Alphonso had oblong-lanceolate leaf shape while others were observed to have the lanceolate shape of leaf. At several occasions due to lack of information on flowering behaviour of parental cultivar, breeding efforts are under-performed. The information pertaining to time of bud break, initiation of flowering, flowering duration, hermaphrodite flower percentage etc. has significant implications on the success of breeding efforts.