Question

In a mango orchard, almost all the mango trees present are grown using stem cuttings. Why do you think this is so? (You may choose more than one answer)

• A. Because stem cuttings provide identical plants and hence identical mangoes.
• B. Because stem cutting helps increase the diversity of mango plants and hence in mango taste.
• C. Because stem cutting directly results in mature plants which can produce fruits quickly.
• D. Stem cuttings are not used because it makes all the plants more likely to die from a single disease.

Answer 1

Answer: (A), (C)

The correct options are
A

Because stem cuttings provide identical plants and hence identical mangoes.

C

Because stem cutting directly results in mature plants which can produce fruits quickly.

Remember that stem cutting is an asexual method of reproduction. Thus, all the offspring are essentially identical with the same characteristics as their parent. This means that new plants are clones of the parent plant and each clone produces the same kind of mangoes.

Thus, farmers prefer this method of propagation because they can get large yields of identical mangoes.

Another advantage of using stem cuttings is that the stem cut plant is already mature. If a seed is used to grow a new tree, the tree would have to first mature (grow old and turn into an adult) to be able to produce fruit. For mangoes, this may take 10-15 years. Instead if we use a stem cutting from a mature tree, we can get mango fruits from the next fruiting season itself as the cutting is already mature.