Chandrya (shaped like a crescent moon), safarchandya (apple-shaped) and dahya (a fruit that tastes like curd), the fast-disappearing country cousins of the Alphonso mango or the ‘King of Fruits’ as it is known, will now be protected by the Maharashtra government.
The state forest department has launched a project to collect and plant wild varieties of mangoes. This ‘mango bank’ will preserve them and allow farmers to use them commercially.
Mango lovers rue that these wild varieties of the Mangifera indica (mango) plant are being ignored and chopped to plant commercially-viable Alphonso trees.
“We have over 80 wild varieties of mangoes, and are on a mission to collect more. We want to cover over 200 varieties, including those from other states,” Prabhu Nath Shukla, Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF), Kolhapur (Territorial), told DNA. He added that these were being propagated in a nursery and next year, while the saplings will be planted on an around 50-hectare patch at Karvir in Kolhapur to create a seed bank in a few years.
Shukla said the state is collecting mangoes with “particular properties and specific characteristics” from Pune, Kolhapur, Satara, Sangli and Ratnagiri.
The CEE has collected the seeds of 82 varieties so far. He noted these wild mango trees were being cut down for monoculture of Alphonso, payri and kesar mangoes and road widening.
