Fruit Facts

Posts Tagged ‘special fruit’

Mango rules the Indian summer and is synonymous with the season. By the end of March you can find markets flooding with different varieties of Mangoes, which goes to peak by the month of May and then the flood of mangoes slowly dies off at the end of June. This is used to be the reign of the King of fruits-Mango. However, agriculturists suspect that climate change and freak showers have considerably reduced the mango production over the years.

Areas in Chennai like T Nagar, Pondy Bazaar, Mylapore market and Koyambedu, which used to be packed to bursting with mangoes from April itself earlier, now sell mangoes only in the month of May. The delay apart, even the number of mangoes being sold in Chennai each year has come down. According to B Ramya, a market project analyst for Tamil Nadu Agriculture University (TNAU), Koyambedu market received at least 20,000 tonnes of the Banganapalli variety of mangoes last year. “But this year, the total number of Banganapalli mangoes brought into Chennai is not more than 1,000 tonnes,” she said.

VG Chittarasu, president of the Tamil Nadu Mango Growers’ Association, attributes this to the decrease in the yield of mangoes per acre over the past few years. “Four years ago, the yield averaged around 4 tons per acre,” he said. “But since then, it has decreased to 2 tons per acre. In fact, this year, the yield was only half to one ton per acre.”

The change is not merely in the yield, but also the ripening time. With each passing year, mangoes have begun to arrive in the market only late into the summer. “Earlier Chennai markets would be flooded with the Senthuram variety by the last week of March,” said Chittarasu. “May would be the time for Thotapuri and June would usher in the Neelam variety. This would mark the end of the season.” However, nowadays, Senthuram does not hit the market until mid-April and continues through the month of May. Thotapuri now arrives only in the month of June.

VC Soundarajan, a farmer from Palani and the former president of the TN Mango Growers Association, attributes these problems to erratic weather due to global warming. “Nowadays, it’s raining when it should be sunny and excessively hot when it should be raining,” he summarised. “Due to excessive heat during the flowering time, there has been very little flowering this year.” According to him, the imbalance in the weather also means that fruits are no longer ripening uniformly. “Four to five years ago, we used to sell Alphonso in the month of January itself. Now due to the climate change, that is impossible,” he said.

M Vijaykumar, the project director for Andhra Pradesh Farmers’ Federation, said the excessive heat and rain during the month of November in AP destroyed the December crop. “We usually have flowering during the months of November and Decemeber,” he said. “But this year, that was destroyed due to bad weather conditions. Surprisingly, there were no buds in January either. So the second round of flowering which takes place in February yielded only 10% of the crop. Whatever mango stock that we have now has come from a late flowering in March.”

Popularity: 100% [?]

Britain might be a nation of binge-drinkers and over-indulgers, particularly at this time of year, but new figures explain we are also a nation of berry lovers.

Sales of British strawberries, blackberries and raspberries have broken all records and suppliers are stressed to keep up with demand.

The soft fruits that are credited with staving off cancer and ornamental sexual prowess have seen sales hit £204m this year.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Apart from delays in travel time and difficulties in getting payment from Chinese businessmen, Taiwan exporters also face import duties as high as 30 percent on shipments of bananas to China, a fruit distributor said yesterday.

Peng Sheng-fu, deputy manager of the Taiwan Provincial Fruit Distribution and Co-op Association, said Taiwanese banana exports to China are levied with a 30 percent duty — 13 percent in customs duty and 17 percent value-added tax.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Apples: you need to look for bright-colored skin and rigid fruit; shun any with bruises or dark spots. The best way to store up apples is in puncture plastic bags in the refrigerator.

Carrots: Choose carrots less than 1 to 1 1/3 inches in diameter. Store carrots with green tops trimmed. Carrots would keep several weeks in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator in punctured plastic bags.

Pears: If pears are hard, they could be ripened at room temperature for more that few days. To keep pears longer periods of time do store them in the refrigerator.

Pumpkins: Select heavy, untarnished pumpkin, which is free of cracks and soft spots and has a deep orange color. Pumpkins need to not be stored in the refrigerator or in a damp place.

Popularity: 2% [?]

PESHAWAR: Sharp increase in the prices of daily using commodities, particularly edibles fruits, in the whole month of Ramazan has made life miserable for people in the NWFP metropolis, while the district government and the price control committees have kept a quiet over the whole situation.

The highest increase could be witnessed in the prices of beef and mutton, as butchers have been charge consumers far higher than the official price list, convincing the people to focus on the buying poultry. The prices of poultry, which were Rs. 100 per kg before Ramazan, have come down to Rs 70 per kg, but due to the high augment in its demands, it is feared that the prices of poultry may show an upward trend.

Popularity: 3% [?]

There has been some recent buzz in Hollywood about so-called “strawberry cocaine.” TMZ did some crack study and got the low down on the blow.

Flavored cocaine is not anything new, we’re told. Law enforcement basis tell us that since the 80s people have been trade coke in all sorts of flavors, as well as rum and cherry, and now it appears strawberry are back and all the rage.

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ, which strawberry flavoring is additional to the drug to give it its fruity flavor. Years ago just adding food coloring was big thing– brown and also red cocaine was the talk of the town. Theoretically, you can make or add any flavor you’d like to the drug.

Popularity: 10% [?]

The wholesale dry fruit market on Saturday closed on a higher note as most of the supplies prices shot up on coming out demand coupled with tiny arrival from producing centers and then closed with fresh grains.

Market men said higher up-country advices too influenced market sentiments.

‘Almond California’ quoted higher by Rs 400 to settle at Rs 12,500 per 40 kg.

Its kerel also followed suit and dear at Rs 435-436 per kilo.

Copra enhanced at Rs 6,500-6,600 against earlier level of Rs 5,800-5,900 due to negligible arrival from southern region.

Fig also quoted higher at Rs 7,000-12,000 instead of Rs 6,500-11,500 per 40 kilo.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Be ready to pay out more at the grocery store for your fruits and vegetables this fall.

A perfect gale has gathered in the Northwest to create higher costs for produce and higher prices for all of us.

Our booming economy is partially to blame for the higher prices you’ll pay out for apples, corn and other fresh produce this year.

Perhaps the largest element of that “perfect storm” is short of workers to pick our crops — a condition that might change the face of Washington produce forever.

Popularity: 1% [?]

NEW YORK – The U.S. government has recently bumped up its recommendations for fruit and vegetable consumption, and a recent study suggests it’s extremely likely Americans aren’t keeping up.

The United States Department of Agriculture had long suggested that everybody to get at least five servings of fruits and veggies daily, but adjusted that requirement to 2 to 6-1/2 cups of fruits and vegetables daily in its new MyPyramid food guide, Dr. Patricia Guenther of the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion and colleagues note.

The guidelines state recommended eating by age and sex, and spell out the variety of vegetables people should eat.

To investigate how many people were meeting the new standards — and the old ones — Guenther and her team looked at single-day food eating data for 8,070 people participating in the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Dubai: Prices of Lebanese food imports have gone up as the Israeli violence continues towards its third week, while traders in Sharjah have congested receiving supplies.

The Fruit and Vegetable Market in Al Aweer has raised the prices of Lebanese create as deliveries have stopped.

“I stopped selling lettuce about a month ago, when the war first started. I now sell the ones from Iran and Syria, because the trucks that used to bring it from Lebanon do not come here anymore,” said Mohammad, one of the sellers in Al Aweer.

Many stalls in the market no longer sell Lebanese-imported oranges or watermelons either, and the little that does sell them is offering them at a higher price.

Popularity: 2% [?]