Junagadh:

The famous Kesar Keri (mango) today made its first presence in Junagadh marketing yard over a month ahead the proper beginning of the mango season.

Secretary of the yard P S Gajera said that in the first lot around 25 boxes of 10 kg each arrived here today. The prices during its first auction today (Rs 1200 to 1500 per box) were much higher than the normal prices of peak season.

Notably, last year the first lot had arrived on March 16 but it was only around five to six thousand boxes. This year it is expected that there would be bumper crop of Kesar.

The mango, which is also a famous item of Saurashtra region of Gujarat like its Gir forests, the sole home of Asiatic lions, was sold at quite a costly rate of around Rs 200 to 250 a kg in retail market as against the peak season rate of Rs 30 to 60 a kg.

A wholesale fruit dealer of the yard said that the inflow of Kesar in to the yard would somewhat steam-line from next month and with proper advent of summer, when more and more lot of the mango would grow and ripe on the trees by itself, the arrival of Kesar in the yard would increase manifold.

Currently the unripe and smaller mangoes are arriving in larger proportion. These are used in various dishes and also to make special sour sauce.

Kesar mango, one of the favourite of Gujarati lot, is also liked by mango lovers of other parts of the country.

DeshGujarat