Orchard owners, growers expect bumper mango harvest in Malihabad

Malihabad (UP), Mar 16 (ANI): Growers and orchard owners of Malihabad in Uttar Pradesh are rejoicing at the sight of blooming mango trees.

This year there has been record flowering of the mango trees and there is no pest problem either.

Veteran mango grower of Malihabad, Kalimullah Khan, who was conferred Padma Shri for mango cultivation and grafting in 2008, said the flowering this season is something he has not witnessed in the past three decades.

"We have never seen a mango tree flowering so much till now. We are hoping that the trees, which earlier used to give 50 kg of fruits, will reap over 200 kg of Dussehri (a mango variety) this season. Bigger mango trees that bear Chausa (another mango variety) are expected to give more fruit this time. And the weather is also supporting the harvest 100 percent, " said Khan.

Khan further said that this season they were witnessing full flowering without any pests like bhunga and laal gujia.

Khan, whose Abdullah Nursery boasts of hundreds of varieties of mango, added that the initial blooming has made the growers happy but there is also certain amount of fear among them.

Santosh Yadav, another mango grower, said that even after shedding of flowers and buds initially in the growing season, there is still plenty of flowering, which has raised the prospects of productivity to a great extent.

"We are happy that there is full flowering in the trees but now we just want these blooms to convert into a rich mango harvest. Till now the crop hasn't been affected. No insects have damaged the crop. And we are also watering the trees regularly," Yadav said.

The Lucknow mango belt is famous for its Dussheri variety of mangoes. The belt produces 4.8 lakh metric tonnes of mango from a cultivation area of 24,000 hectare. It is the most productive mango belt in the country with an average yield of nineteen metric tonnes per hectare, while national average is just six metric tonnes per hectare.

The Malihabadi Dussheri mango was officially accorded the GI (geographical indication) status recently after a two-year long battle by over 100 orchard owners. The next mango crop would be sold in the open market under the same name.

This status will also help the farmers in making better profits and exporting them under area name.

As per GI registration, the right to marketing a product is exclusively tied to a definite geographical territory and it restricts others from marketing or processing a product in the same name, anywhere in the world. (ANI)