Sankaran Namboothiri, Palakkad, Kerala

My favourite is a native mango variety, which as children, we called ‘chakkarakodayan’ since it was as sweet as chakkara (jaggery). I enjoyed sucking the juicy pulp from these small mangoes. It is no longer found in backyards of homes now. So I eat another local variety, Moorthy 1, from a four-decade tree which I named after our ancestral home, Moorthiyedathu Mana. Adapted to the local weather, this fruit grows in clusters. Each mango weighs around 100 grams, with a Brix level (sugar content) of 23, which is quite high for a ripe mango.

I have eight indigenous varieties in my 4.5 acre farm, which is home to over 700 varieties of mangoes and several native trees. Farming has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Growing up in rural Sreekrishnapuram in Palakkad, I enjoyed plucking and eating the umpteen mango varieties from our backyard. Back then, I dreamed of growing them someday, a dream which was fulfilled once I became an organic farmer.

It has been heart-breaking to see several native mango varieties from Kerala getting lost over the years. Determined to try and conserve what is left, I started learning about mangoes, and eventually could identify 443 local varieties, which I planted in my farm. I found that each district has its preferred variety: kottoorkonam in Thiruvananathapuram, karpooram in Kollam, and kuttiyattor in Kannur, etc. I have managed to collect most of these. I also have 17 out of the 22 Indian mangoes with GI tags, including kuttiyattoor from Kerala. Aroor olor from Kozhikode, which will soon get the GI tag, is next on my list.

The diversity is exciting, from the flavour to the size, weight and shape of the leaves. I have a variety that bears fruits weighing five kilograms each, which I got from Tamil Nadu and have named Sree, and another with mangoes weighing just 25 grams, which I call manjakadukka.

Arun Sogathur, Bengaluru, Karnataka

While I grow many fruits, mangoes are my main crop. I have over 25 varieties on my farms: there are premium hybrids such as Arka ambika, Udaya, and suprabhath, as well as Tommy Atkins, which has a good colour, but less striking taste and aroma.

My favourite mangoes are imam pasand and Arka suprabhath (a double-cross hybrid between Amrapali and Arka anmol, with a firm, fiber-free pulp) because, while every mango’s taste is unique, these two varieties remain firm even after ripening.

I also enjoy the Appemidi mango, a GI-tagged pickle variety native to Karnataka, with a very good shelf life and a distinctive aroma and taste. The whole fruit is put in the pickle, without cutting, like vadu manga. It is a native variety, which has been around for hundreds of years. Now the native trees in the Shivamogga and Sirsi belt are being cut down because the trees grow very large, often reaching 200 feet, and the expertise required to harvest their fruit no longer exists. We grow this variety by maintaining the tree’s height, making it easy to harvest.

However, the variety I grow the most is alphonso because that is what everyone seems to like!

A fruit with no name

KS Jaganatha Rajaa, Rajapalayam, Tamil Nadu

II’ve tasted mangoes from almost every part of India, but the sweetest of them all is the sappattai that grows in the red soil of Tamil Nadu’s Virudhunagar district. I grew up eating it every mango season since I was a child. The flesh is smooth and juicy, and the juice trickles down your hand.

My second favourite is the Panjavarnam, another variety that grows in Rajapalayam and its surrounding regions. I have revived through the grafting, several rare varieties that are native to Virudhunagar district where my farm is located. This includes Mohandas, potalma, kovankachi. All of them have unique flavour profiles. One variety called theeyamavadi is crunchy like an apple and is best had unripe; another called karupatti kaai tastes like palm jaggery.

There is one other mango that I’ve recently taken a liking to. It is a variety that is yet to be named. Three years ago, I was called to identify a mango from a tree that is over 40 years old that grew from the seed of a mango someone had eaten and cast away. The fruit from the tree is one-of-a kind. It is small, sweet, and pulpy. The skin is tender and the flesh is devoid of fibre. The owners of the land wish to cultivate the variety to market it and requested my help in raising 500 saplings through grafting.

This will happen over the years and we are now in the process of sending the fruit to a lab to get it tested for its sucrose percentage. We planted 160 saplings last year, of which around 70 are alive and thriving. Once they start yielding fruit, it will be named and we will get to taste a completely new variety of mango.

Under the mango tree

Asiya Khan, Chevella, Telangana

Growing up, memories of mango were centred around spending summer holidays under the tall trees in our backyard. We cultivated mangoes of the Deccan region such as Benishan (Banganapalli), imam pasand, pedda rasalu and chinna rasalu. We would wait restlessly for the ‘tapakna’ (falling) period, when mangoes would be ready to be plucked. Oftentimes, we would start eating them even before they ripened!

The sight of mangoes soaking in big buckets of water was common through the summers of my childhood. Mangoes are soaked in water to neutralise the ‘heat-producing’ effect and to get rid of the sticky sap that can cause irritation. My grandmother would check for ripe fruit from the lot and keep them covered in hay at home. It was a method she followed like clockwork.

My favourite mangoes will always be the imam pasand and Banganpalli. Pedda rasalu is best consumed under the tree, messy, without anyone bothering you. At our farm at Chevella in Telangana, we also grow heirloom varieties like panchadhara and swarnarekha. Panchadhara is a sweet juicy variety and swarnarekha is a mango with pinkish skin. We want to revive and save these varities so that our native varities not lost to genetically modified ones.