Mangoes ripen in Baishakh — or so it used to be. Katimon has changed that. With the month of Bhadra nearly over, ripe Katimon is on sale from Dhaka's pavements to the fruit shops of its wealthiest neighbourhoods, and will still be there in Ashwin. Prices run from Tk 160 to Tk 280 a kilo by size and grade. The Department of Agricultural Extension estimates national output at about 100,000 tonnes a year, roughly 5 per cent of all mango, and says production is doubling almost every year.

Bangladesh grows about 2.6 million tonnes of mango a year. Amrapali leads with 35 per cent, or 650,000–700,000 tonnes, followed by Himsagar at 15 per cent, BARI varieties 10, Haribhanga 7, Gobindabhog and Katimon 5 each, Langra 4.5 and Gopalbhog 2. Md Mehedi Masud, the horticulture consultant at the department who is credited with introducing commercial Katimon cultivation, expects those shares to shift soon.

His search for a year-round mango began in 2002 while working on an FAO project in The Gambia, where mangoes fruit for about ten months. Local candidates — 'Barishali baromashi', the 'Niluddin' from Cumilla and BARI-11 — all failed commercially. He first saw Katimon in a Vietnamese supermarket and learned it was a world-class Thai perennial variety. Two thousand saplings were imported in 2014; in 2016 ten mother trees were planted at horticulture centres in all 64 districts, 50,000 farmers were trained and about 7,000 demonstration orchards established. The fruit began reaching markets in 2023.

Commercial cultivation now covers about 7,000 acres, the department says, led by Naogaon with 700–800 acres and Chapainawabganj with more than 500. A grafted sapling can flower within six months, though blossoms are removed until the tree is two years old. A two-year-old tree gives about 20 kilos twice a year. With 100 trees to a bigha, yield is about 4,000 kilos; even at a wholesale price of Tk 120 a kilo the net return is about Tk 500,000 a bigha — more than any other fruit currently offers.

Removing the natural February–March blossom lets growers take flowers in April–May for an August–September crop, June–July for October–November, and late October for December–January. Ripe Katimon is golden yellow, averages 396 grams, and measures 20 Brix of sweetness against Amrapali's 26. Its thin stone and low water content mean it keeps for at least ten days without chemicals, which suits it to export; it is also marketed as 'honey mango'.

Delwar Bepari, a fruit seller on Satmasjid Road in Dhanmondi, sells about 40 kilos a day — top-grade fruit at three to a kilo for Tk 250–280, smaller ones for Tk 180–200. Shahin Alam, a grower and trader from Rohanpur in Chapainawabganj, ships about a truckload a day to Dhaka's wholesale markets and buyers across the country; a good deal is also sold direct through Facebook and YouTube.

Whether the imported variety will eventually crowd out local ones is a live question. Mehedi Masud says protecting native varieties matters, but that in a globalised trade a variety with Katimon's commercial promise was bound to arrive; the answer is to cross its strengths with local mangoes to breed better new varieties.

Source: Prothom Alo