Mango — Anwar Ratol

Anwar Ratol (Mangifera indica var. Anwar Ratol) is a named cultivar of mango, the medium-sized evergreen tree in the cashew family that is grown across the warm tropics for its fruit.¹ It is not a separate botanical species, so the tree behaves like any mango; what sets Anwar Ratol apart is the fruit, a small, premium dessert mango prized for intense sweetness and aroma rather than size.¹²³ Also spelled Anwar Rataul, it traces back to a grower named Anwar-ul-Haq, who developed it in or near the village of Ratol, a place most often placed in Uttar Pradesh in northern India.¹²³ For a homesteader in a frost-free climate, the appeal is straightforward: this is a connoisseur’s mango, a tree you plant for flavour and fragrance and for fruit that sells on its name, not for tonnage.¹

The fruit is small to medium, with mature dimensions of roughly 9 by 5 to 7 by 6 to 7 centimetres and a weight of about 200 to 250 grams each, broad-elliptic in cross-section.¹ The skin is thin and smooth, turning from green to a lemon or golden yellow as the fruit ripens.¹⁴ Inside, the flesh is a deep cadmium or bright orange-yellow, juicy, and essentially fiberless except for a little fibre right under the skin, yet soft and firm enough to give the fruit reasonable keeping quality.¹ The stone is relatively large and flat, surrounded by that fiberless flesh, and the seed within is oblong.¹ What growers remember, though, is the chemistry of the pulp: total soluble solids run a very high 24 to 26 degrees Brix against a low acidity of about 0.17 to 0.19 percent, giving a fruit that is intensely sweet, strongly aromatic, and citrus-tinged, often described as having “excellent flavour” and an “intoxicating aroma.”¹²³⁴

Growing Anwar Ratol

Because Anwar Ratol is a cultivar of Mangifera indica, it is propagated vegetatively rather than from seed. The cultivar carries a small, single-embryo (monoembryonic) seed, which means seedlings will not come true to type; to keep the variety, scion wood is grafted onto mango rootstock, as is standard for named mango cultivars.¹ A seed-grown tree from an Anwar Ratol stone may grow well, but its fruit will not reliably reproduce the parent’s qualities, so a grafted tree from a known source is the way to get the real thing.¹

The cultivar is described as needing a tropical climate with hot summers and mild winters, and it does best where there is a distinct warm, dry season to drive flowering and ripen the fruit.¹ Its commercial strongholds bear this out: it is grown widely in the Punjab province of Pakistan, in districts such as Multan, Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan, as well as in Sindh, hot, semi-arid mango belts where the climate and soils are considered ideal for it.¹³ Like mango generally, it needs frost-free or very nearly frost-free conditions.¹³ The sources here give no Anwar Ratol-specific USDA hardiness zone; mango as a species is generally placed in roughly USDA zones 10 to 11, but that is an extrapolation from the species rather than a figure from a trial of this cultivar, so treat it as a guide. Soil specifics, spacing, irrigation schedules and a precise time to maturity for this cultivar are not documented in the available sources, so they are left out here rather than stated with false precision; in practice, grow it as you would any quality mango, on deep, well-drained ground in full sun with a dry spell ahead of flowering.

Harvest and uses

Anwar Ratol is first and last a fresh dessert mango. The fiberless, honey-sweet pulp and powerful fragrance make it a fruit eaten out of hand and savoured rather than one grown for bulk pulping or processing.¹²³⁴ The fruit’s good keeping quality, owing to flesh that is soft yet firm, helps it travel and hold on the stall, which is part of why it has become such a sought-after market variety.¹

On yield, the honest picture is modest. The cultivar is described as a “shy bearer,” producing a lower crop per tree than many commercial mango varieties despite high demand for its fruit.¹ For a homesteader that is a fair trade-off: you plant Anwar Ratol not to fill crates but for a smaller quantity of exceptional small golden fruit that commands a premium. The sources here give no per-tree or per-hectare yield figures for this cultivar, and none should be invented; what they establish is a high-flavour, lower-volume tree by reputation.¹

How to identify it

Within the broad world of mango cultivars, Anwar Ratol is recognised by the combination of a small fruit and outsized sweetness:¹²⁴

• Fruit size and shape: small to medium, about 200 to 250 grams, roughly 9 by 5 to 7 by 6 to 7 centimetres, broad-elliptic in cross-section.¹
• Skin: thin and smooth, ripening from green to lemon or golden yellow.¹⁴
• Flesh: bright orange-yellow (cadmium), juicy, and essentially fiberless except just under the skin.¹
• Stone and seed: a relatively large, flat stone with an oblong, single-embryo seed.¹
• Flavour: very high sugar (24 to 26 Brix) with low acidity, giving an intensely sweet, citrus-tinged, strongly aromatic eating quality.¹³⁴

Sources

1. Anwar Ratol varietal profile – DHA Multan mango portal
2. Anwar Ratol mangoes – Fresh Mangoes US
3. Anwar Ratol – ZZ Mango
4. Anwar Ratol mango – MMA Farms