From cotton to chilli and now mango, a farmer-breeder’s long harvest

| Photo Credit: PAUL NICODEMUS

Kongara Ramesh left school after Class VIII. He never returned to formal education. What he did instead, across six decades of quiet, persistent enquiry, is harder to summarise: cotton hybrids, chilli varieties, homeopathy, and now, in a two-and-a-half-acre orchard on the outskirts of Visakhapatnam, a collection of mango varieties that he believes can change what Indian farmers earn and what Indian consumers eat.Born in Kakumanu, near Guntur, Mr. Ramesh grew up watching his father develop new crop varieties alongside professors from Bapatla. When his father became sarpanch and asked him to stop schooling, the boy did not resist. Agriculture was already where his mind lived.His early work was in cotton. Farmers travelled from across the country to obtain the hybrid seeds he produced for the National Seeds Corporation. He then turned to chilli, developing upward-cluster varieties that dried on the plant. A serious motorcycle accident interrupted this work, and he moved to Visakhapatnam to recover. The chilli varieties were eventually registered under the Indian Germplasm Registration (INGR) with NABARD’s support.Recovery opened a new chapter. “I started crossing different mango varieties to address existing challenges,” he says. One challenge was the mango’s brief season. Another was the widespread practice of harvesting raw fruit and ripening it with chemicals. He wanted mangoes that ripened naturally on the tree, without falling, and could then be frozen and stored for months or even years.The solution lay in understanding how ripening begins. In most varieties, it starts at the stem end, loosening the fruit’s hold. Mr. Ramesh selected and bred trees where ripening begins from the lower portion, allowing roughly 70% of the process to occur on the tree before harvest. The result: fruit that can be frozen without significant deterioration, stored, and sold throughout the year, freeing farmers from the pressure of distress sales during the short harvest window.Amrutham and SwagathamTwo of his developed varieties have names: Amrutham, chosen for its long shelf life and taste, and Swagatham, an early-season variety with a welcoming aroma. Both are awaiting registration under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority, with the ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research collecting required field material. Testing is being conducted at the same institution in Karnataka.