Introduction

Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is an important tropical fruit belonging to the family Anacardiaceae and is one of the choicest fruit in the world. The common habitats of Nepalese mango diversity are tropical plain home gardens, river gorge locations, and subtropical valley (Subedi et al., 2021). Among fruits mango is considered as the king of fruit due to its unique flavor, taste and scent. 

Mango is mainly grown in the frost-free areas with very few rainfalls during the time of flowering (Humayun and Babu, 2002). Flowering of mango is crucial factor in the productivity of mango. In tropical fruits like mango, stems that have spent enough time in rest since the previous flush are able to induce flowers. The most important factor influencing flowering is the time since the last flush (Ramírez and Davenport, 2010). Initiation is the first step for mango to flower which involves cell division and elongation. Mango trees passes through four unique periods of flowering: Swelling of the apical bud, panicle elongation, panicle growth and flowering then fruit set (Lemos et al., 2018). Variability of flowering in mango depends upon variety, tree age, and environmental condition (Palanichamy et al., 2011). 

Mango grows in almost all area of Madesh province but good quality grafted mangoes of known varietal identity are mostly grown in Sarlahi district. Moreover, research on the performance of those varieties grown in that area are rare. So, it is necessary to assess the performance of the superior varieties grown in that area. Therefore, an attempt was made to study the floral characters of 10 varieties in the mango orchard of Tropical Horticulture Center, Sarlahi district, Madesh province, Nepal.

1 Materials and Methods

1.1 Experiment materaial

The present experiment was conducted in a pre-established orchard of Tropical Horticulture Centre, Sarlahi district, Madesh Province during February-June, 2023.The experiment was conducted on 10 mango varieties viz- Amrapali, Bombay, Baramasi, Kalkatiya, Dasheri, Nam Dok Mai, Jarda, Malda, Mallika and Neelam. 

1.2 Experimental design

The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications, where a single tree represents a unit of replication. A total of 30 randomly selected trees three from each variety were tagged. One inflorescence from each selected full bloomed tree was taken for reading their physical characteristics like length of the inflorescence, width of the inflorescence, number of male flower per inflorescence, number of hermaphrodite flower per inflorescence, sex ratio.

1.3 Data collection

Floral data from 10 varieties of mango were recorded according to the Morpho-Physical characters of mango flower (Saheda et al., 2019). The length of the inflorescence was measured from the base to the tip while width of the inflorescence was measured at the broadest part of the base of the inflorescence. Male and hermaphrodite flowers were counted manually using forceps. Sex ratio, % of male flower and % of hermaphrodite flower were calculated as follows:

2 Results and Discussion

2.1 Inflorescence characteristics

In term of color and shape of the inflorescence, a wide variation was noticed among the varieties. All the varieties have pentamerous type of flower at terminal position. The inflorescence color of varieties varied from light green to crimson. Dasheri, Jarda, Malda expressed light green color of inflorescence, Amrapali and Baramasi showed green colored inflorescence whereas Bombay, Kalkatiya, Mallika, Neelam exhibited crimson colored inflorescence and yellowish green colored inflorescence was seen in Nam Dok Mai (Figure 1).

Dasheri and Neelam has broad pyramidal shaped inflorescence but Mallika exhibited pyramidal shaped inflorescence. Similar findings were also reported by (Saheda et al., 2019). It was observed that, among 10 mango varieties Amrapali, Bombay, Baramasi, Malda and Mallika showed pyramidal shaped inflorescence, Kalkatiya, Nam Dok Mai and Jarda exhibited conical shaped inflorescence and Dasheri, Neelam recorded broad pyramidal shaped inflorescences (Table 1).

Results of this research showed that maximum length of the inflorescence (31.9 cm) was recorded in Jarda, Maximum width of the inflorescence (19.7 cm) was recorded in Dasheri, maximum male flowers per inflorescence (1363) and maximum sex ratio (19.63) were seen in Bombay and maximum hermaphrodite flowers per inflorescence (230.7) was seen in Amrapali whereas minimum length (20.9 cm) and width (11.3) of the inflorescence (Figure 2), less number of male flowers per inflorescence (195) and minimum sex ratio (1.13) were recorded in Kalkatiya but minimum hermaphrodite flowers per inflorescence (59) was recorded in Neelam (Table 2).

Maximum percentage of hermaphrodite flower per inflorescence (94.1%) was recorded in Bombay followed by Malda (83%) whereas it was minimum in Kalkatiya (50.8%). Maximum percentage of hermaphrodite flowers per inflorescence (49.24%) was recorded in Kalkatiya followed by Amrapali (44.85%) whereas it was minimum in Bombay (5.93%) (Table 3; Figure 3). These findings are similar with the findings of (Kumar et al., 2014) and (Sinha et al., 2018) who recorded highest percentage of hermaphrodite flowers per inflorescence in Amrapali (48.45%).

3 Concluding Remarks 

In conclusion, there is huge variation among the mango varieties in term of floral characters. This gives breeder the opportunity to develop improved varieties using the variability of desirable genotypes. Moreover farmer gets the opportunity to select varieties in term of desirable characters.

Authors’ contributions

Kiran Thapa: Writing-original draft, Investigation, conceptualization, Methodology, Data collection and analysis. Rupesh Chaudhary: Investigation, conceptualization, Data collection. Pratiksha Sharma: Writing-review and editing, Methodology, validation. Sunil Kumar Chaudhary: Writing-review and editing, Methodology, validation. Poojan Adhikari: Writing-review and editing, Formal analysis. Pawan Pyakurel: Writing-review and editing, Methodology, Conceptualization. Arati Chapai: Writing-review and editing, to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Acknowledgement

Special gratitude to Tropical Horticulture Center, Sarlahi and Agriculture and forestry university, Bharatpur, Nepal for providing necessary assistance during this research work.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

The authors affirm that this research was conducted without any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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