Mangoes at the Australian National Mango Genebank

Print this entry

The Australian National Mango Genebank is the largest collection of mango cultivars and mango related species in Australia. The genebank is maintained as a collection of mature growing trees on the Department of Primary Industries and fisheries, Ayr Research Station. The collection consists of approximately 300 mango cultivars and related species, originating in many parts of the world.

The collection was started in the 1960’s in the Brisbane region with an introduction program targeting promising varieties from around the world. This program was later expanded to the Bowen/Ayr (dry tropics) and Kamerunga/Walkamin (wet tropics) regions of Queensland. In the early 1980’s the collection was moved to the Ayr Research Station where it is situated today. Within the genebank there are several smaller collections such as, Australian cultivars, foreign cultivars, green eating cultivars and Mangifera species. Although mango is not native to Australia, many selections of trees were made in the 1960’s. These trees were generally found in the vicinity of Queensland ports. Many of the trading ships in the 1800’s left mango seeds behind that found their way on to farms and stations. A number of these cultivars are represented in the genebank.

The collection also contains many of the more popular commercial varieties from around the world. The collection holds mango varieties from Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Mexico, Hawaii, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Taihei, Jamaica, South Africa, Israel, USA, Australia, Kenya and Brazil. In recent times an effort has been made to collect the best green eating varieties from around South East Asia to supply the growing demand for green-eating mangoes in Australia. The collection now holds green-eating varieties such as Keow Savoey, Rad, Nang Klang Wan, and Falan, from Thailand, Xoai Tuong from Viet Nam, and Golek from Indonesia. The collection also holds a number of related Mangifera species that may, in the future prove useful in breeding programs or as sources of rootstocks. Some of these include M. odorarta, M. cesia, M. foteida, M. panjang, M. aplanata, M. zelynica.

The genebank has been used as a centralised source of mango genetic material for industry diversification over the past 40 years. Throughout its life the genebank has played a major role in all industry genetic improvement programs, supplying growers with new varieties and as a source of parental material for seedling selection and breeding programs. The successful Australian cultivar “R2E2” was developed using seed material from the Australian National Genebank. More recently the genebank has been a major source of parental cultivars used in the Australian National Mango Breeding Program, which has been very successful generating large numbers of high quality hybrids is using controlled crossing techniques between Kensington Pride and a number of varieties from the genebank. The Australian National Genebank is a collection that is continually having new accessions added and information on the accessions upgraded.  The collection is a vital part of Australia’s mango industry and an essential tool in the improvement of mango germplasm. Because they only have a single tree of each variety, they can only supply small amounts of budwood of any one variety.

If you are interested in any particular variety please contact the Farm Manager at Ayr:

John Brown 07 4783 0401 or Ian Bally, Senior Horticulturist, Horticulture and Forestry Sciences, Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, 28 Peters St (P.O. Box 1054), Mareeba QLD 4880  Telephone  07  4048 4644   Facsimile  07  4092 3593  Call Centre 13 25 23

email  ian.bally@dpi.qld.gov.au   Mobile  0419 679 463

                                                                      Australian National Mango Genebank

                                                                                   Ayr Research Station