ISHS Acta Horticulturae 820: VIII International Mango Symposium
NEW CULTIVARS AND HYBRID SELECTIONS FROM THE MANGO BREEDING PROGRAM OF THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH COUNCIL IN SOUTH AFRICA |
| Authors: | C.F. Human, S. Rheeder, A.D. Sippel |
| Abstract:
The classical breeding of mango cultivars is an inefficient and time consuming process. Most of the current mango cultivars however resulted from either random selection or classical breeding. As the mango industry in South Africa is mainly based on five or six commercial cultivars with numerous negative characteristics such as low yields, poor fruit quality, a narrow maturity window, susceptibility to diseases and physiological disorders (Human et al., 2000), a breeding program was started during 1990 by the ARC-Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Crops (Cilliers et al., 1996). Natural crossings (open pollination) are mainly used in the breeding program although artificial crossing (hand pollination and caging of topworked cultivars) are often also used. Currently a total of 3067 selections are being evaluated at two localities in the Lowveld of the Mpumalanga province. Promising selections from this breeding program are topworked onto established Sabre rootstocks and compared with two commercial cultivars regarding yield, fruit size and internal fruit quality. Two cultivars, Joa and Chené, were released from the breeding program in 1996 (Human et al., 2004). Another selection, A2-CD28, was recommended for Plant Breeder’s Rights (PBR) early 2005, whilst application for PBR’s was also filed for four other selections, namely A2-A12, A2-B26, C2-E17 and P3. The newly recommended cultivar, A2-CD28, a Fascell seedling, is a high yielding mid-season cultivar with an attractive pink blush. Characteristics of the new selections are also described as well as those of other promising selections from the breeding program. | |
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