Evaluation study for the effect of four mango rootstocks on behaviour of Keit mango variety

Mango as a tropical fruit produced in about 90 countries in the world with a production of over 5.1 million tons (Rathor et al., 2007). With the intensification of fruit production due to socio-economic consideration, the role of rootstocks in commercial fruit production has increased considerably in the recent. The rootstocks today have abroad spectrum of uses such as improving fruit quality, imparting adaptability to climatic and edaphic conditions, vigour management, and enhancing fruit yield, etc., especially for temperate fruit crops. Unfortunately, rootstock selection and uses, as important aspect of modern fruit production, has not made equivalent progress with tropical fruit crops in general and mango in particular. However, mango is an important national crop in Egypt and major item within the national food basket of the 27 governorates that the area harvested was 82058.4(Feddan) which produced 375461.00(tones) in 2005. (FAO production year book, 2007) That we noticed that the average production of mango are generally poor, only about 4.5 ton/feddan because the trees is huge and planted at wide spacing based on eventual tree size, there are not specific rootstock recommendations for commercial mango cultivars, and so seed propagation is still the chief method of multiplication of rootstock. Use of non-descriptive mango stones for multiplication of rootstocks has led to enormous variation in trees in orchards. The use of seedling of unknown pedigree as rootstocks, often from natural cross pollination, poses the threat of possible clonal degradation of superior cultivars in addition to the drawback of nonuniform crop stands and large trees size. Such large trees mean fewer trees per fedan, difficult pest and disease management, cumbersome harvesting and fruit handing and ultimately poor productivity. Kurian et al. (1996). So that several attempts have already been made to reduce plant height by the use of dwarfing rootstocks in high density planting system which have several advantages such as facility of harvest and fungicides spraying as well as the reduction of fruit loss at post harvest stage. The purpose of this study was to evaluate four mango rootstock namely, Zebda, Socaria, Hybrid 13/1, and Hybrid 4/9 as a main mango rootstock in Egypt in recent, and compared between their effects on Keit mango variety as grafted on them, to have some information about these rootstocks to can us to give good recommendations concept any of these rootstocks can recommended in case of drought or salinity condition, highly orchard density system, and any of it expect to give high production