History of Mango in India and Southeast Asia

History of Mango in India and Southeast Asia
Domestication of mango probably occurred at different times and in different –places on the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Mango cultivated in India can be dated to 4000 BC. Today the mango tree and it fruit remain important Indian religious and cultural symbols.

It has been suggested that the Portuguese, who established trading outposts along the west coast of India in the 15th century, introduced vegetative propagation methods in India and these were used for the first time to clone superior monoembryonic trees. The most important mango cultivars of India e.g., ‘Alphonso,’ ‘Dashehari,’ and ‘Langra,’ are selections that were made at the time of Akbar the Great and have therefore been propagated vegetative for several hundred years.

It is uncertain when cultivation of polyembryonic mangoes originated in Southeast Asia. According to a linguist analysis of the various common names for mango in Southeast Asia, they concluded that polyembryonic mango was probably domesticated independently by several indigenous cultures in that region. The traditional cultivars of South Asia, e.g., ‘Arumanis’ in Indonesia and ‘Carabao’ in the Philippines, continue to be propagated as nucellar seedlings in the region.

The spread of mango from South and Southeast Asia to tropical and subtropical areas of the world came as a result of the Portuguese and Spanish voyages of exploration from the end of the 15th century onward. Generally speaking, the Southeast Asia polyembryonic types were carried across the Pacific Ocean along the Spanish trade routes to Peru, Central America and Mexico. The most important mango cultivar of Mexico today is the polyembryonic ‘Manila.’ The Portuguese carried Indian mango westward to their outposts in Africa, and later to Brazil.
History of Mango in India and Southeast Asia