help! I broke my mango seedling's root

Question

Ok, so my cousins had come over.sweet kids of 8 and 9. I was just showing them around my garden.And earlier in the day, we had some mangoes, and I had showed them how to take the seed out of the tough outer shell. Both of them had a seed each ,I put mine in the wet-paper towel-in ziplock bag experiment. We were searching for a spot in the garden, and started digging some soil and placing the seed there.Finished off by pouring some water.

Then I just wanted to show them how the seed grows.So I had dug out some mud from my pot where I had placed a seed 20 days ago.And we got to the seed.My cousins peeped in and said they wanted to see the whole thing. I was sceptical, and honestly thought the seed is dead or something- since the plant had not come up yet and I had lost hope in it. So I dug it some more , and the seed seemed stuck or too tight to come out.I used my fingers to just move the mud aside, and holy cow I saw a strong root going down ! I was so happy!

But then it had been just 20 days , so I thought the root might not be lengthy. I was trying to chisel the seed out with my hand ,my cousins helped me push the mud out of the way.By then there were three hands in the pot, and I tried to be careful but my hand slightly shifted and, Oh dear god, the root BROKE!just like that!

I took the seed out and the broken root. It was 2 inches approx long!. But the seed still has an inch and a half of strong root attached to it.The cut end had some kind of rootlings coming out of it,tiny <1mm kind of light greenish white tubes( I don't know how else to describe it!) radially popping out.

I have planted the seed back into the mud and took away the broken root as a souvenir. Is there any chance that the seed will grow a new root?

Can I do anything with the broken root? right now its inside a pot, But will it grow?I know that's silly , but still, does the broken root do any good?

EDIT 1: just made my sentence construction better.

Answer 1

No, the broken root won't regrow - the part which produces topgrowth has now gone, so it has no 'instructions' as to how to proceed - this information comes from the actual seed or stone. I'm not sure if you're saying the tiny rootlets spreading out radially were on the now detached piece of root, leaving the original seed with just a root and no rootlets. If you are, there's slightly less chance your mango will continue to grow, since its been interrupted at a critical stage - but it might recover well, so its worth taking care of the one you've replanted in terms of water particularly.

It's a valuable lesson though - for a plant to start showing green growth from a large seed or stone, its already grown root/s below ground, or it wouldn't be sprouting in this way. If you've ever seen a conker which has started growing the spring after falling to the ground, you'll first notice the topgrowth, usually about 4 inches tall - if you dig that up, it has a very long root with rootlets already present, much longer than the topgrowth. Root initiation and development with large seeds starts before green topgrowth appears, basically, though some plants are quicker to produce topgrowth than others.

UPDATED ANSWER;

You've said there were rootlets present still on the seed end of the broken root - it should be fine, assuming it doesn't suffer drought. I guess you know that mangoes don't come true from seed - it'll be interesting to see how big it gets and whether it produces good mangoes or not very nice ones, though fruiting will be some years away.