MANGO Interesting new book Indian Council of Agricultural Research of Old Goa (FAX 0 8 3 2 .2 8 6 2 4 9) or try Email : icar@goa.nic.in has just released an interesting book on the _Mangoes of Goan Origin_. It was released on the weekend. Fascinating set of photographs. I hope the Other India Bookstore Email:oib@goa1.dot.net.in will oblige its Goa-interested readers and stock some copies of this book for mail-order requests. This book is priced at Rs 50 within India and $10 abroad. Sixtytwo pages, with a number of colour photographs, describing all currently available mangoes in this state. Some details below: Goa is home to an amazing seventyseven varieties of the mango. It is widely believed that Goa has among the largest number of mango varieties, and also some of the best mangoes in the whole of the country. India itself is a leading mango grower in the world. For more details about the mango over the centuries in Goa, see Carmo Azavedo's article _From India, thru' Goa, to the World_ in Goa Today of June 1 9 8 5 (eightyfive). "(We want to) introduce Goan mangoes to the tourists, specially the foreigners who throng Goa to enjoy its natural bounty, since very little is known about the mango wealth existing in this small state," agriculture minister Dayanand Narvekar said here. Over the centuries, Goa has been improving the quality of its mangoes by repeated attempts at grafting, a method either introduced or perfected here by this region's former Portuguese rulers. Some forms of grafting are believed to have spread to the rest of India through Goa. Foreign travellers and writers -- right from Dr. Fryer who visited Goa in the late seventeenth century -- have sung praise to the Goan mango. Portuguese naturalist Garcia D'Orta who wrote the first systematic account of Indian flora by a Western scientist in the sixteenth century, devoted an entire chapter to the mango. Some point to the obviously Portuguese-influenced names of mango varieties popular in other parts of the country -- like the "Aphos" or Afonso and the Pires or "Pairi" of nearby Mumbai -- to point to the Goan origins of these varieties. Goa was won "champion of champion" prizes for its mangoes in the past, but much needs to be done to boost the potential of this fruit here. In the late 'seventies, there were as many as 77 (rpt seventy seven) varieties of mango reported in Goa. Today, some of these are hardly found in the state, while others are available on a very few number of trees, facing the threat of extinction. Researchers by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research reported here that there was, for instance, just a single tree of the Mang Ananas variety remaining. It is called thus because the fruit colour resembles that of a pineapple. From: Frederick Noronha Email : fred@goa1.dot.net.in |