Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
6
Mango
Zora Singh and Sukhvinder Pal Singh
INTRODUCTION
The mango ( Mangifera indica L.) belongs to the
Anacardiaceae family and is the second most important
fruit crop of the tropics after banana. It is native to South
Asia especially eastern India, Burma and the Malay
Archipelago. It has been cultivated in this region since
ancient times. However, it has spread to different parts of
the world in the past few centuries. Mango tree is an
arborescent evergreen, medium to large in size with
rounded canopy and has a very long life span of sometimes
more than 100 years. The fruit is a large, fleshy drupe with
edible mesocarp, and the size and shape vary considerably
depending upon the cultivar. There is a great diversity in
mango cultivars distributed throughout the world. It is
popularly known as 'the king of fruits' and is the choicest
fruit due to its delicious taste, pleasant aroma and high
nutritional value. Earlier considered as an exotic fruit, it
has now become a popular fruit in the European and North
American markets also. Mango is cultivated over an area of
3.87 million hectares with an annual production of 28.22
million tonnes in the world (FAO 2005). The Asian
continent contributes 75% of the total world mango
production followed by Africa (9.67%), North and Central
America (9.04%), South America (5.99%) and a very little
share from Oceania (Table 6.1). Country-wise, India is
world's largest mango producing country contributing
about 38% to the world production followed by China,
Thailand, Pakistan, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil and the
Philippines (FAO 2005). The mango industry experienced
buoyant growth in the past decade and is likely to boom
further in future as its cultivation is expanding to some
newer regions of the world and the trade liberalization
which imparts impetus to the expansion of international
trade of fresh fruits including mango, is resulting in higher
volume of fruits shipped across different continents. The
international trade of fresh mangoes is expanding at a
faster rate as consumers in the European and North
American countries are developing the taste for the fruit.
A massive increase in the export and import of mango has
been observed in both quantity and monetary terms during
the 2000s. Mango export rose from 0.33 million tonnes
(US$335 million) in 1995 to 0.9 million tonnes (US$583
million) in 2004 (FAO 2005). Despite the huge production
in the Asian continent, its share in export is around 37%
(FAO 2005). Mango production is located in most of the
developing countries of the world where an appropriate
post-harvest handling infrastructure is still in infancy. It is
a highly perishable fruit but keeps well for 9-10 days if
harvested at mature green stage. However, the post-harvest
behaviour of mango fruit is strongly influenced by the
cultivar, harvest maturity, the post-harvest treatments and
storage conditions. The chilling sensitive nature of mango
fruit limits its long duration storage and transportation at
low temperature below 13°C. The use of controlled/modi-
fied atmosphere technology for long distance shipping has
not been yet fully capitalized by the exporters. The
restriction on the use of certain fumigants has narrowed the
scope of post-harvest disinfestation treatments. The quar-
antine requirements of various importing countries to
prevent the entry of exotic pests to their domestic fruits
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