Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana L.)

Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana) is one of the most popular tropical fruits in trade owing to its delicious taste and aromatic flavor. However, its area expansion beyond its native ranges has not been satisfactory due to slow-growing habit, long juvenility, low success in vegetative propagation, and rather rigid climatic requirements. Being an obligate apomictic species, its natural intraspecific diversity is low, and all the known handful of varieties have been developed through selection. Mutation breeding also has potential to create variability, and some attempts have been made in this regard. Hence, conservation and utilization of wild genetic resources hold immense importance for its improvement. Due to inherent limitations for conventional hybridization, in vitro techniques such as somatic hybridization and embryo rescue could come in handy. Further, potential of other Garcinia species as suitable rootstocks for mangosteen also needs to be explored in order to solve the problems of long juvenility and slow growth of seedlings.