Mango lovers will get to relish a “slender” and “beautiful” mango this summer – a “Yogi mango” named after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The mango variety has been developed by the city’s famous mango grower Padamshri Haji Kalimullah.
Kalimullaha, 74, who had earlier named mangoes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and actresses, has developed the “Yogi mango” in his orchard in the Dussehri mango belt in Malihabad area.
The “Yogi mango”, he says, is grown naturally, is slender and beautiful and is a hybrid of the famous Dussehri mango variety.
“However, as the mango is still not ripe, nothing can be said about its taste but I hope it will be good”, Kalimullah said.
The mango grower had earlier named mangoes after Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai and cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar.
Kalimullah says he names new mango varieties after celebrities “to make the legends immortal”.’
Kalimullah, who has been growing mangoes since 1957, has a mango orchard spread over five acres area at Malihabad.
The orchard has about a century-old prized tree, on which he started working in 1987 to develop the craft of growing different varieties on it.
He has also named the mangoes grown on this tree after his family members, who were also mango growers.
It is Kalimullah’s talent in grafting and cultivating varieties of mangoes that fetched him the Padma Shri title and also that of “Udyan Pandit” by the Uttar Pradesh government.
Kalimullah is famous for growing 300 different varieties of mangoes on a single tree.
Asl-ul Muqarrar, the bright red Husn-e Ara, Sharbati Bagrain, Pukhraj, Walajah Pasand, Khas-ul Khas, Makkhan, Shyam Sunder, Prince, and Himsagar varieties of mangoes are among hundreds of his creations.
Kalimullah is lovingly called “Mango Man” or “Aam Aadmi” for his grafting skills.
