Abstract
This chapter covers the following aspects of mango breeding and genetics: origin, distribution and cultivation of cultivars; reproductive mechanisms (polyembryony, floral biology and pollination incompatibility, and cytology); inheritance of characters (dwarfness, regular bearing and precocity, flesh colour, skin colour, flowering time, beak, disease resistance, and other horticultural traits); breeding objectives; methods of breeding (selection from open-pollinated seedlings and controlled pollination); handling of hybrid populations and selection (criteria for initial selection, pre-selection, marker-assisted selection, and molecular markers); minimizing problems in breeding (heavy fruit drop, long juvenile phase, and polyembryony); achievements of conventional breeding in India and other countries; mutations (somatic mutations and induced mutations); and breeding potential of wild species.