Mangoes on planet are in abundance. Every variety of cultivar is unique and they are harvested around the year at different seasons. Few varieties are perineal like Thailand mangoes, though are not that popular to India.
The natural Arrival time of the mangoes in India is summer time. The winter sets the flowering bloom for Alphonso mangoes and in mid of summer harvest started. This is a generally the pattern throughout India. Interesting fact about mangoes on west coast of India from Kerala to Gujarat is the pattern of arrival of mangoes. The mangoes harvest follows the path of great Indian monsoon. The monsoon once passes Andaman and Nicobar Islands in Indian oceans, hits coast of Kerala and travels from the south west to north east from Arabian sea. Similarly, the mango harvest starts in the down south of Kerala followed by Malabar coast to the coast of Mangalore, Goa and coast of konkan till gulf of Kutch in Gujarat.
Alphonso mango is a sweet mango variety found in konkan belt of coastal Maharashtra in west India. The dominance of authentic alphonso is in two regions. 1st harvest starts in Devgad region followed by Ratnagiri region after the interval of 10 to 15days in later. In any Alphonso mango orchard plucking is done based on the maturity of the fruit. As all the mangoes are not getting matured at once, it requires around 4 to 5 harvesting cycles in every orchards during the given alphonso mango season that is in summer time. The arrival of mangoes in in the month of march and last till monsoon sets in konkan till early June. We should be fortunate to have it on our plates as this crop is sometimes hit by heat waves and cyclones. So, let’s await the arrival of the king of mangoes this summer season to relish these heavenly fruit.
