DIJKMAN AND SOULE: MANGO SELECTION 257 told me that he had never ceased to regret ing for Dr. Fairchild thirty years ago!" We having chosen Trapp and Pollock as the first picked out a lot of promising trees and cut two varieties to be put on the market commer budwood. Some went to California, some went cially; he had developed what I believe you home with me to Honduras. folks call "consumer resistance" to purple Of course there were many trees which were fruits which exists to this day. not in fruit at the time of our 1947 visit, so The alternate-bearing habit of the Guate we decided to go back again in 1948, at a malan race seems gradually to be driving this slightly different season; and this time some of race out of the industry, at least so far as the lads from Texas joined us, and we under California is concerned. Just this year the stood your own Ivey Futch was planning to Variety Committee of the California Avocado come. He did not show up—maybe a hurricane Society had to take Nabal, one of my pets, off blew him temporarily off the map. Anyway, we the approved list. I don't blame them. Nabal did our best without him and even visited is a magnificent fruit—one of the finest of its several other avocado-growing regions. race. I chose it in Guatemala, way back in The result of these two expeditions was 1916, because it was such a fine fruit and some 40 selections, which were planted in Cali the parent tree was carrying a tremendous fornia, in Texas, and in Honduras; and sub crop. I gave it the name "Nabal" which is an sequently we sent budwood of some of the Indian word meaning "abundance." When they most promising to Florida, to South America, threw this back at me in California, not long and even as far as Johannesburg, South Af ago, I defended myself strongly. "Sure it rica. I do not think any of these introduc means abundance," I said, "abundance every tions has yet matured fruit in California, but third year." here in Honduras (because, as I tell every I am afraid we are not prepared, here in one, here we have the sort of climate folks Honduras, to give Florida avocado growers think they have in California) we had mature as much assistance in the matter of new va fruit on some of the 1947 selections twenty rieties as we hope to give the Californians. months after insertion of the buds. Since But I want to tell you briefly what we have that time, we have fruited about 25 altogether, been doing. In 1947 Harlan Griswold and and some of them look very promising, so others of the California Avocado Society de much so in fact that we have named and de cided it was time to go back to the native home scribed two, which we call Aztec and Toltec. of Fuerte and get some more varieties with We propose to go on giving Mexican names to the same background—crosses between the further good ones which show up; I have al Guatemalan and Mexican races. It happened ready chosen Zapotec and Huastec and was that a resident of Atlixco had got the fever, going to use Mixtec until someone mentioned probably (I assume) from having heard how that it would be pronounced "mistake" and Fuerte had succeeded in California, and he might eventually prove to be a bit too ap had planted an orchard of about 4000 seed propriate. lings. These were probably 15 or 20 years I do not know what to expect of these va old, hence of mature size. rieties in Florida. If any one of them pans Louis Williams and I joined the Califor out, I imagine it may prove to be in the Ridge nians, and as we went through that wonderful section, rather than South Dade. As far as we collection of potential varieties I thought to can see, there is no West Indian blood in any myself, over and over again, "What a time I of them. Some lean toward the Guatemalan would have had if I could have dropped into an side, some toward the Mexican. The former avocado paradise like this when I was explor may be the ones most worth trial. A TENTATIVE METHOD OF MANGO SELECTION M. J. DlJKMAN AND M. J. SOULE, JR. Meeting of the Florida Mango Forum held at Fort Lauderdale on July 11th and 12th, no University of Miami doubt observed the striking number of new varieties on display. Since most of the new Coral Gables varieties shown at its exhibits have been ob Those of you who visited the 10th Annual tained from hybrid seedlings of unknown or 258 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 1951 conjectural parentage, the Mango Forum a (11). In this work of scanning the thousands few years ago appointed a committee of judges of trees scattered over the state, the Forum whose task was (and is) to maintain quality has provided the necessary preliminary selec standards as high as possible for this material, tion upon which further improvement must be in other words to stimulate progressive se based. lection by awarding recognition only to the It should be emphasized that the varieties very best new varieties. selected thus far have nearly all been the re Now that plantings of good and reasonably sult of chance crosses or segregations. In a good varieties have become rather extensive, few cases, we know or assume the identity of the time has arrived for Florida to put her the female parent of a given seedling but there mango industry on a solid basis by adopting a are few authenticated instances of a properly large-scale systematic breeding and selection safeguarded cross having produced a named program. variety. (This startling fact however was also true of the majority of deciduous fruit crops The Present Status of Selection up to 1900 and is still true of most tropical The varieties of mangos in Florida at the fruit crops.) present time represent the culmination of Difficulties in Mango Selection some 4,000 years of effort by mankind to im prove this "queen of fruits." Over the past While improvement in the mango follows 200 years, but particularly since the turn of the general principles of crop breeding and the century, many of the choice Indian and selection, it nonetheless encounters many ob Indochinese varieties have been imported into stacles. The mango has flowers of two types, this country. Through generations of selec perfect and staminate, appearing in varying tion of their seedlings, the introduced varie proportions in the same inflorescence. Both ties themselves have undergone a culling pro normally have but a single fertile stamen and cess for adaptability to our climate and soil. thus do not lend themselves well to pollination. Self-sterility is suspected in many varieties. With the discovery of the inarching method Usually the mango is cross-pollinated in Na of vegetative propagation in India, the plant ture, but varying degrees of self pollination ing of monoembryonic varieties became fea are also known to occur. Artificial pollinations sible on a commercial scale (1, 5, 6). Later, of mango varieties, both crosses and selfings, in the United States, the Philippines and Ha have met with very little success, usually less waii, the less tedious, cheaper methods of bud than one percent of the flowers developing to ding and grafting were provided to the rapidly mature fruits (2, 4, 9, 24). expanding mango industry (5, 7, 13, 14, 22). In addition to the above-mentioned charac The budding on polyembryonic varieties has ters connected with the flowering and bearing been superseded by budding monoembryonic of the mango, the question of embryony must varieties until at present one rarely finds a be considered. While pollination of the flower polyembryonic variety being planted even in and subsequent fertilization of the egg is con dooryard cultures (12, 16, 18, 21, 23, 25). sidered essential to the development of the The question of stock/scion relation cannot fruit, additional embryos may arise in the yet be regarded as solved. Important in this imcelllar tissue. The fertilized embryo is us connection is Dr. Fairchild's information that ually hybrid in nature while the nucellar em buds of superior seedlings of the Saigon, bryos are exact duplicates of the mother tree. worked on the polyembryonic terpentine seed While the two types of embryos may be dis lings proved to be superior in flavor according tinguished in the very young stages of the to many mango fanciers to the monoembryonic fruits, the lack of distinctive vegetative char stocks from Indian varieties. Since the poly acteristics in most of the mango varieties pre embryonic sorts come from Indochina and the cludes a separation of the plants resulting Philippines, this might indicate intraspecific from a polyembryonic seed until they have quality preference between these varieties. fruited. Since the percentage of polyembryonic The selection of new varieties in Florida has seeds in a variety depends upon physiological been aided materially through the formation and environmental conditions as well as its of the Mango Forum by giving the growers a genetic constitution, the phenomenon assumes place where they can display their discoveries a role of considerable importance for the DIJKMAN AND SOULE: MANGO SELECTION 259 breeder as well as the grower (8, 9, 10, 19, The above system was developed and per 20). fected in the East Indies by the Dutch for The mango provides an excellent example of rubber, coffee, quinine, tea, and other crops.