Harmonious phenological data: A basic need for understanding the impact of climate change on mango

Abstract

Uniformly collated phenological data set is the most important requirement for developing climate change impact models for mango. Consistently collected phenological records directly indicate the effect of change in climatic parameters by depicting shifts in phenological events. Recording of consistent data pertaining to phenophases as a function of time serves as critical input for working out integrated interaction of interannual variability, spatial differences and climate variability impacts. In general, uniform qualitative data recording is difficult in mango due to variations in plant growth and development under diverse climatic fluxes occurring in subtropical to tropical regions. Major observed effects of climate change on mango include early or delayed flowering, multiple reproductive flushes, variations in fruit maturity, abnormal fruit set and transformation of reproductive buds into vegetative ones. These critical phenophase-dependent events require supporting quantitative data representing behaviour of sufficient number of shoots within a tree for objective analysis of factors influencing them. For monitoring the phenophase dynamics, use of extended BBCH (Biologische Bundesanstalt, Bundessortenamt und Chemische Industrie) scale developed for mango helps in monitoring the phenology by employing uniform methodology over same or different locations with the description of each phenophase in mango as distinctly classified by adopting numerical code. A manual to elucidate the methodology for general users has been developed with the help of pictorial representation of phenophases along with corresponding scores, analysis, depiction of results and interpretation for uniform data recording, and this can be downloaded from http://offseasonmango.cishlko.org/phenology.pdf.