BHUBANESWAR: The king of fruits has a new flavour this season with a new mango ‘Arka Neelachal Kesari’ entering the market. The supply of the variety developed by scientists at the Central Horticultural Experiment Station (CHES), Bhubaneswar, has commenced.
Scientists said while the mango season usually starts in April second week, the naturally ripened juicy and sweet variety of mango developed by them at CHES, is available in the market from March. The variety matures five to six weeks before the early mango varieties like Himsagar or Sinduri, they claimed.
The early arrival of the locally grown variety possesses great market advantage which in turn facilitates substantial enhancement in the profitability for growers. The variety has been approved under Central Variety Release Committee (CVRC) during the year 2022. It has excellent quality with attractive colour and appreciable sweetness, they said.
The CHES scientists claimed that the variety can fetch three to four times more price than other popular mango varieties like Amrapali and it has the potential to double the income of mango growers if strategic and intelligent marketing is done.
Principal scientist (Fruit Crops) Kundan Kishore said it is crucial to harvest the fruits at the correct stage of maturity and ripened as per approved ripening techniques as per safety standards. Head of CHES (ICAR-IIHR), Bhubaneswar P Srinivas said hot water treatment is essential to prevent post-harvest diseases and fruit flies.
Accordingly, the scientists said CHES, Bhubaneswar is also organising training and workshops regularly on value addition such as grading, washing, hot water treatment, packaging, etc through post-harvest interventions.
It also provides packaged Arka Neelachal Kesari fruits to mango lovers at affordable prices which are duly processed in the post-harvest facility developed at their campus under Rashtriya Krushi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), they said.