Kakasaheb Sawant, an auto mechanic-turned-farmer from the Sangli district of Maharashtra, has grafted 22 varieties of mangoes on a single tree!
Farmers from far and near visit his farm to witness the horticulture wonder.
His mango tree with 22 varieties grafted on it is laden with fruit varieties from Sindhu, Dudhpedha, Sonpari, Dasheri, Taiwan, Amrapali, Alphonso, and Baramashi.
Always on the lookout for new mango varieties, he aims to reach the magic figure of 100 graftson the same tree in a few years.
Sawant’s family owns 20 acres of land in Antral village which is also a drought-prone region. Farming activities there are at the mercy of nature’s vagaries, which locals term ‘hangami sheti’.
He decided to grow mangoes on his farm 15 years ago. Usually, local farmers here either grow grapes or pomegranates and consider mangoes a ‘novelty’ and ‘exotic’.
“When I planted mangoes, people laughed at me because they thought mangoes could only be grown in the Konkan, famous for its Hapus (Alphonso),” says Sawant, who earlier worked as an automobile mechanic.
In 2010, he established his mango orchard. The Kesar variety occupies 10 acres while the other 10 acres have chikoos, pomegranates, custard apples, guava, and tamarind.
Each year, he harvests four tonnes of mangoes per acre, totalling 40 tonnes.
Later on, he also started a nursery that fetches him up to Rs 2 crore annually. He sells around four lakh mango saplings a year, priced between Rs 80 and Rs 500 depending on sapling size and age.
Today, he has become a role model for other farmers in this water-scarce region.