Summer is here. It is impossible not to talk about mangoes. The king of fruits, mango, is a favourite fruit of people not only in India but also in other countries. People are drawn towards sweet, pulpy and juicy mangoes because of their aroma, but if you are asked how many types of mangoes have you eaten? Or how many types of mangoes have you seen in the market, what will be your answer? 10, 20 or at most 30. But there is a person in India who grows so many types of mangoes in his farm that you would have neither thought of nor heard their names.
This person, famous as Mango Man, is Ashok Maiti. Ashok Maiti, who runs a nursery on 10 acres of land in Jakpur village near Kharagpur in West Bengal, is the person who grows the largest number of mango varieties in India. They grow 80 varieties of mango, out of which about 35-40 varieties are indigenous and the rest are foreign. IIT Kharagpur also sends farmers to Ashok Maiti for training in growing fruit and flower plants. Ashok Maiti grows mango saplings with his family, let’s know about him and mangoes..
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India leads the world in mango cultivation.
Started growing roses in 7th class
Talking to News18 Hindi, Ashok Maiti says that when he was studying in class 7, his elder brother brought a rose plant and asked Maiti to plant it. Maiti planted it in a pot on the roof. It grew so well that it bloomed a lot of flowers. In this happiness, he grew many more rose plants on the roof. In a few days, the entire roof was filled with roses. When there was no space left on the roof to dry clothes, mother said to pick up your roses and take them down, no plant will be planted here. Interest in planting trees increased so much that he started growing those plants again downstairs. In a few days, I saw that neighbors and people around also praised the roses, so I started enjoying it more and thought that I will do just this. Brother also told me to do nursery work, and from that day onwards I never looked back.
Maiti says, ‘I started setting up a nursery in 1978. After about 3 years, in the 80s, Lalu Prasad Sharma, a relative of former President of India Shankar Dayal, sent a booking of 15 thousand rose plants from Madhya Pradesh. We supplied these from the nursery in a few days. Then we supplied. At that time the rate of the plant was 3 rupees. This was the first biggest supply. After doing this, courage increased and then I started getting happiness by doing this work. Gradually, apart from roses, I started planting fruit plants.
Today there are 80 varieties of mango available
Ashok Maiti says that after roses, he focused on mangoes and started growing almost all varieties of plants available in India. After this, he started growing some plants of foreign varieties by importing them and today all the varieties grown in Pusa of India including those from Thailand, Japan, Australia, Bangladesh are available in the nursery. Here, plants of all varieties ranging from Dussehri, Langra, Chaunsa etc. mangoes to Arunima, Ambika of Pusa, Bainganfulli of South India, foreign mango Miyazaki, Twingo de Tomago, Banana Mango of Thailand are available here from Rs 30 to Rs 400.
Roses have been invented in the name of personalities
Ashok Maiti has also invented a rose in the name of President Pranab Mukherjee.
Ashok Maiti has also developed more than 100 rose species. He brought out the first rose in the name of martyr Khudiram Bose. After that Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Pranab Mukherjee invented a golden colored rose in the name of the President which is still present in the Rashtrapati Bhavan of Delhi. Apart from this, the owner of Bokaro has developed rose varieties in the name of AK Mishra, his village, river, Shiv temple and his father.
grow more fruits
Ashok Maiti says that apart from mango, the nursery is now growing 12 varieties of guava, 20 varieties of lemon, seasonal and orange, 3 varieties of papaya, apple, plum and many varieties of blackberry, mulberry, walnut, plum, jack fruit etc.
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Tags: Fruit Market New Rate, IIT Kharagpur, west bengal
FIRST PUBLISHED: May 23, 2024, 20:46 IST
