Progressive Farmer Grows Exotic Varieties of Mango, Rice

Voduri Nageswara Rao (55) brought in saplings of Miya Jackie, Banana mango, Black Stone etc from Japan four years back and planted them in his orchard. These started yielding fruits from last year.

The Miya Jackie variety of mango costs Rs 2.50 lakh per kilo, says Nageswara Rao, adding that he didn't want to sell the produce now, and instead distributed these to his friends and relatives.

Rao said the mangoes are very delicious and very sweet. He’s particularly fond of the Banana Mango, which is sweeter. “We can peel and eat, like bananas.”

So far, he imported 370 saplings of 46 mango varieties and they were grown with good care. This year, he brought in 300 saplings from Japan to add to his farm’s line-up of fruit-bearing trees.

These saplings can be grown also on the terrace of buildings and would give yield in a span of one and half to two years. His Black Stone variety has not given any yield yet.Some of the mango trees contracted some disease and have not given a yield yet.

He said the exotic mango yield this season was not encouraging. “I hope to make good money from my mango gardens in the next two or three years, by when the yield would be high."

Nageswara Rao is producing and selling the local varieties of mangoes like Benganapalli, Panduru Mamidi, Kothapalli Kobbari, Cheruku Rasalu etc which gave good yields this year.

He's also doing experiments in rice varieties. He cultivated Basmati rice in four acres and got yields of 30 bags per acre. “I would cultivate red rice this year with seeds coming from Japan. This can be sold at Rs 15,000 per kilo. It’s a very healthy food," he said.