Status of mango cultivation in Kerala
1999
Ramachandran Nair, S. | Radha, T.(College of Horticulture, Kerala (India))
Kerala state is located in the Southern part of India with a total geographical area of 38.85 thousand square kilometres. The climate is humid tropical with an annual rainfall of 307 cm, distributed in two main monsoons namely, South-West monsoon and North-East monsoon. Mango is not considered as a commercial crop of Kerala, but mango trees are inevitable components of homesteads of the state. The total estimated area under mango cultivation is 75,911 hectares with an annual production of 32,3517 tonnes. Commercial orchards of mango are being established in the Palakkad district, where the climatic conditions are more suitable for mango trees. A detailed survey was attempted to collect all the details of mango cultivation in the Palakkad district, which represents the commercial mango production in Kerala state. The mango population consists of both seedling and grafted trees but the commercial orchards are of grafted trees only. The cultivated varieties include Alphonso, Bennet Alphonso, Bangalora, Banganapally, Neelum, Kalapady, Guddadat and Prior. The main feature of Kerala mango production is the earliness. The first mango fruits of the season come to the Indian markets from Kerala. The flowering commences by November-December and the harvesting starts by March-April, which helps to fetch the maximum price for the fruits to the growers due to the high demand for the fruits in the main markets in the other parts of the country. The details collected during the survey included the nature of mango orchards, the distribution of different varieties in these orchards, the cultivation practices followed by the growers, the fruiting and yielding behaviour of the varieties, the marketing system prevailing, the problems and prospects of mango cultivation in Kerala.
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