RAJKOT: Along with the platter of sweets, you could even serve freshly cut luscious kesar mango to guests this Diwali!Sounds unbelievable, but thanks to climate change, mango farmers in parts of Saurashtra and Kutch are seeing raw kesar mangoes dangling from the trees in their orchards. For a change, vagaries of weather have come as a blessing for these farmers, who are rubbing their hands in glee as they expect the fruits to ripen around festival of lights.Agriculture scientists too are surprised by the yield of kesar, whose official season ends latest by June last week. Farmers also said they haven’t adopted any modern agriculture technique and the fruits have grown naturally/ Harisinh Jadeja, a farmer in Kotda-Rova village in Kutch’s Nakhtrana taluka, was surprised when he noticed flowering of several mango trees a month ago. He thought they would wither away but the trees have already borne fruits, which can be plucked soon. “I have been growing mangoes for 10 years now but this is the first time, I saw fruits growing so late on nearly 35 trees. They are big in size and I expect to pluck them as soon as they are ripe,” said Jadeja, who plucks 9,000 kg kesar from 700 trees in his orchard.If all goes well, Jadeja will pluck nearly 1,500 kg kesar by Diwali.Ranjit Zala, a farmer of Ditla village of Amreli’s Dhari taluka, is seeing flowering on mango trees in his orchard since a two weeks. “This the first time that there are raw mangos are on the trees in my farm. These are expected to ripen just like the seasonal kesar.”R S Chovatia, head of horticulture department. Junagadh Agriculture University (JAU) said: “Not only in Kutch but in few orchards of Junagadh too, we got to see kesar mangoes during Diwali. Though the yield is not very big, it is an unusual phenomenon solely attributed to climate change that we need to study.”JAU is already studying the effect of climate change on mango, especially in Junagadh, the hub of kesar mangoes.Jayesh Hirpara, a mango grower in kesar hub Talala, said: “A farmer of Babaria village in Gir-Gadhda taluka also got kesar on some trees recently, but they were completely damaged due to rain.”

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