According to the Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture (Cish) NEAR here, India could become a leading exporter of mangoes in the next few years thanks mainly to the export-oriented research work being carried out by the institute.

Cish is the principal research unit for mangoes in the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) set up.

Cish director,SS Negi said 1999 was an unusually good year for mango production in the country because of the combination of favourable weather conditions .

The principal commercial mango varieties in the country give fruit abundantly only once in two years, followed by a sluggish off-year.

He added that the Cish scientists have come out with a chemical treatment for mango trees to overcome this sluggish output phenomenon.

Negi pointed out that fresh mango export was alsoaffected by the comparatively low keeping quality of Indian mangoes and strict phyto-sanitary conditions insisted by buyer countries.

Incidence of occasional fruit fly infestation in Indian mangoes has led to importing countries like Japan and United States insisting on costly heat treatment of consignments from India.

However, the export of processed mango pulp was free from such strict commodity health conditions and its annual sale stood around 438,000 tonnes worth Rs 125 crore.

The Cish director said the trade liberalisation has resulted in boosting the production and export of mangoes. Growers who traditionally regarded mango as a crop that needed no care are following scientific cultivational practices.

The institute was also tackling other impediments in Indian mango trade, he added.

He pointed out that though Uttar Pradesh accounted for the largest acreages under mango, the state's annual output (2.92 million tonnes in 1997-98) was only second to that of Andhra Pradesh (3.07 million tonnes).Likewise, Andhra Pradesh also tops in the export of both fresh and processed mangoes.

Negi said Uttar Pradesh had some of the finest mangoes like dasheri, langra, chausa, rattol and safeda. But their exports were inhibited by the huge internal demand and lack of concerted export drive.

Cish has already devised a simple and inexpensive chemical treatment to make these varieties bear fruits every year. Efforts are also on to bring out new varieties combining the dominant traits of traditional varieties for the export market.

He said the variety Cish-m1, being released by the institue is one such combining the good characteristics of amrapali and janardhan pasanda, he disclosed.

Negi said India should boost the overall mango production to about 20 million tonnes in the next couple of years and aim at an export target of about 20-25 per cent of the total production.