Mangoes on the move

Grower to take a punt on hybrid varieties

A MUTCHILBA grower has taken the plunge to plant new hybrid mango varieties to stay ahead of an evolving market.

The move had been a long time coming for Raimond Bin who was introduced to the National Mango Breeding Program varieties 1201, 1243 and 4069 about eight years ago.

He has now planted more than 2000 of the new varieties on his property near Mareeba as part of the Australian Mango Industry Association commercial evaluation of the new hybrids.

With plans to plant a further 1000 trees in the coming months, Mr Bin’s newly planted hybrid mango trees represent the largest commercial plantings of the three new varieties in Australia. “In the mango industry you’ve got to have the volume and I really did not want to plant more KPs (Kensington Pride),” he said.

“What really drew me to these new varieties is that they have really nice colour to them (a strong red/pink blush over a pale yellow background) and they colour throughout the whole tree for the whole season.

“My gut feeling is I do think the market will take to it.

“I think it’s something that will take time simply because there’s not a lot of growers putting them in yet, but there’s a lot of interest out there.”

Mr Bin said out of the three varieties, one was tipped to come in at least three weeks earlier than the popular KP, one in line with the KP season and one to come in later.

He said flavour and size also varied.

“I think they really have got something to offer,” he said.

“One of them pretty well tastes exactly like a Kensington Pride, and one has got a completely different flavour, but it’s still a very tropical flavour.

“I figure you need to move ahead of the times and it’s a risk, there’s no denying that, but it’s something that to me has got potential.

“There’s still a lot of hybrids in development and they’re going to come in, so for me it’s a case of either getting stuck with what you’ve got or you need to move ahead.”