Fruits of success

Farmer Naveen Manganawar has 3,000 trees of the Thailand mango variety on his seven-acre orchard in Shivanagi village of Vijayapura district. The mango trees are hardly 4-5 feet tall and bear fruits throughout the year

- FIROZ ROZINDAR @ Vijayapura

OR most people, mango is essentially a summer fruit, available only for a brief period before it disappears off the shelves for the rest of the year. But Mahendra Mirajkar, a resident of Solapur in Maharashtra, travelled all the way to Shivanagi village in Vijayapura district to buy mangoes—not in April or May but the monsoon month of August.

The reason for this extraordinary trip was personal. Mirajkar's son, who lives in the United States, was visiting India after two years with his family, and he loved mangoes. Mirajkar had learnt about a farmer who was cultivating a species of mango which grows through the year, and decided to surprise his son. "My son loves mangoes. During mango season, we send him boxes of fruit by courier. But this time, since he is visiting India, I wanted to surprise him with his favourite fruit in August, when it is impossible to get fresh mangoes," Mirajkar said.

In Shivanagi village, he found what he was looking for—fully ripened, naturally sweet, and aromatic mangoes grown in the orchard of farmer Naveen Manganawar, a 45-year-old cultivator who has scripted a remarkable farm success story.

Challenging experiment Unlike other mango growers who depend on the rhythm of seasons, Naveen cultivates a Thailand mango variety that bears fruit throughout the year. While traditional Indian varieties such as Alphonso, Banganapalle or Raspuri appear only during the scorching summer months, the Thailand variety thrives round the year.