Introduction:

1. Introduction: • Healthy planting material is necessary to produce healthy and high yielding Mango Trees. Well attended nursery plants are more vigorous, produce quality yield and are resistant to pest and diseases. Qualitative and healthy planting material is the key to successful and profitable mango orchard management. • Low quality, stunted, diseased planting material can cause immense losses to the future plantation. Non qualitative planting material do not produce a good and healthy orchard even after taking proper care and management.

2. Quality Parameters: Selection of quality planting material in mango can be effectively carried out by following criteria. Proper conditions can indicate healthy and vigorous planting material in Mango. • Plant age • Plant height • Variety (stock and scion) • Disease and Pest Infestation • Nutritional Deficiency Symptoms • Hardening • Condition of the Graft Union.

3. Plant Age: • Age of the plant is an important criteria in quality of nursery plants. Plants with appropriate age tend to acclimatize better in the field conditions and sustain transplantation shock. Proper age of plants also symbolizes sufficient time for union of graft and hardening process. • The Mango nursery plants from 6 to 12 months should be preferred. Young mango plant of less than 6 months may face mortality in the field conditions. • Plant age can be determined by its height, number of leaves, the basal girth, etc.

4. Plant Height: • Plant height is an indicator of age and growth of nursery plants. 2 to 3 feet plants are ideal for transplanting into field. The plants should be more than 1 feet at the time of planting. • Lesser plant height indicates stunted growth or premature plants which should be avoided at the time of planting an orchard. Such plants fail to establish and unable to produce quality yield. • Taller plants indicate older plants, such plants may also face difficulty in establishment. Taller plants are also difficult for handling, transportation and plantation.

5. Variety: • Nursery planting material should be selected based on the variety in demand in the market so as to fetch good market price. • Varieties better suited to climatic and soil conditions prevailing in the field must be preferred so that they face lesser disease and pest attacks. • Authentic planting material must be collected from specific agro-climatic zones and from the authorized and reliable nurseries.

6. Region-wise Recommended Mango Varieties

7. Disease and Pest Resistance: • Nursery plants to be selected as planting material must be free form disease and pest attack. • Plants which show pests infestation may be stunted in growth and vigor in the field and thus cannot produce an healthy and high yielding orchards. • Use of diseased rootstock as well as scions must be avoided to produce healthy planting material.

8. Disease and Pest Resistant Varieties Examples: • Bangalore round, Bapatla, AC 10, Seedless Pulhora, Kala Hapus, Keshar, Basti, BeneshanBangalora, Chinnarasam and Khander are resistant to Mango hopper attack. • DeshiMalgoba, AlamBaneshan are gall midge pest resistant varieties. Sindhu, an hybrid mango variety is resistant to Stone Weevil. • MA-1 (Aishwarya) clone of alphanso variety of mango shows lower incidence of spongy tissue. Tommy Atkin is a variety resistant to Anthracnose in mango.

9. Nutrition: • The rootstock, scions and the grafted nursery plants must be healthy and vigorous. Nutritional deficiencies can retard growth and development of the planting material and affect yield in future. • Nursery stock showing deficiency symptoms like yellowing, chlorosis, necrosis, purple coloration, etc must be avoided. • Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium, Zinc and Iron are some of the important nutrients for the Mango Seedlings .

10. Hardening: • Planting material in the nursery should be produced under favorable climatic conditions. • Plants attain fast growth in nursery due to favorable climatic conditions, however such seedlings fail to adjust in open fields. • During hardening process, these nursery plants are gradually exposed to outdoor environment so that such plants can easily established in the fields.

11. Condition of Graft Union: • The mango grafts with healthy and sturdy union must be selected for planting in the field. • Graft union must be clean without presence of sooty mold or other fungal infections. • Plants which have rootstock and scion of similar thickness and a smooth union must be selected . • 6 to 12 moths old grafts having upright scion growth and not more than 3-4 branches are desirable for planting.