‘Taste and Select’ best Jackfruit

Venkatakrishna Sharma, a Karnataka farmer is different in more ways than one. When everyone is raising rubber plantation in their uncultivated lands, Sharma differs. “I would rather grow jackfruits instead. At least we can eat it”, he says.

In April this year, he conducted a unique ‘home jack festival’ at his house near Vittal in Buntwal taluk. ‘Taste and Select best Jackfruit’. He painstakingly collected about forty jackfruits from his village and neighborhoods. One advantage with Sharma is that he knows how to climb and harvest jackfruits. Moreover, he has a very good knowledge of characters of hundreds of jackfruits of his area!

Judges were selected from among the guests and asked to evaluate the collected jackfruits. The selected jackfruit varieties are then grafted. Sharma has recently raised a one acre jackfruit orchard with carefully selected jack varieties including ones selected in his ‘home jack festival’. This way, his maybe the first customized jackfruit orchard of the state. It houses many of Karnataka’s famous jack varieties like Kachahally jack, Swarna, Sadananda All season jack etc.

“My orchard should be a gene-pool for interested farmers in future”, hopes Venkatakrishna. He has plans to extend the garden further.

‘Home Jack Fest’ has turned into a trend now. Months later, Dr DC Chowta and fellow-farmers hosted one at Meeyapadavu. Ubaru Rajagopala Bhat organized one at the fag end of this jack season. Interestingly, Sharma released grafts of the five jack varieties that were selected in his jack fest.

Sharma himself has named these varieties. Billampadavu Ananya, Kuddupadavu Madhura, Alike Prashanthi, Mudrakshi (Muliya Rudrakshi) and Ubaru Rajarudrakshi are the five selected varieties. “Let more and more farmers be variety conscious and plant only selected grafts”, he keeps telling.

Venkatakrishna Sharma (08255) 205502, 094802 00832

Contributed by Shree Padre, shreepadre@gmail.com

Labeling models –An initiativeof KVK Pathanamthitta for promotion of Jack fruit

CARD Krishi Vigyan Kendra is in the fore front of jack fruit promotion as we believe that jack fruit which is a by default organic fruit in Kerala has an important role in ensuring food security of our nation. Presently, jackfruit as a whole and especially the soft fruited “Kuzha” variety has a very low market value in Kerala leading to wastage of fruits. The CARD Krishi Vigyan Kendra Home Science division started promotion of value addition of jackfruit and developed processing standards for 28 jack products. The traditional and technical jack products made by the SHG groups fail in the market because of reasons like variation in quality among different product batches, lack of proper packaging and labeling, lack of proper application of marketing strategies etc. Realizing this, CARD-Krishi Vigyan Kendra in 2009 started developing standards for labeling and packaging for Jackfruit and other underexploited fruit products. Based on the developed standards, the KVK Home science division trained rural women on value addition of underexploited fruits. The rural women following the standards reported a 30% increase in the sale volumes of the products. This simple intervention in the presentation of the products boosted the morale of the rural entrepreneur to take up jackfruit value addition as an income generation activity and taking another step towards achieving food security

Text by : Rincy K Abraham, Subject matter Specialist(Hort.

A repository of Jack Recipes

A grandmother slowly walks upto the dias and keeps a plateful of deserts on the floor of the dias. Organisers pick up that plate and offer the contents to all dignitaries including a minister. Everybody likes the sweet – It was jackfruit peda. Occasion : Recent Jack Festival at Sirsi, Karnataka.

At 75, Indira Ajji (grandmother) is a repository of jackfruit recipes. Jackfruit papad, chips, sambar, kadabu are usual Malenadu recipes during jackfruit season. Indira Ajji knows a range of breakfast items like tellevu (a kind of dosa), roti, vada, bonda, dosa and dinner items like suttevu, priaju, sole kochchalu, undalikalu, (sweets), bajji, chakke paladya, sole paladya, palya made out of jackfruit peel, hadigadde palya, sole hasi.

No one approached her to participate in the Jack Fest. It was her passion that drove her to make special jackfruit pedas for the occasion. Sensing her enthusiasm, organisrs called her to the dias and recognized her with a memento. T was a surprise for the grand old lady who had surprised all the spectators and organizers of the fest in her own humble and novel way.

Recalled she, “when I was in my village Nakshe I used to get ample of jackfruits. But now, living at Sirsi town, I don’t get choice jackfruits for my preparation.”

Photo & Text : Sandhya Hegde Almane

sandhya.almane@gmail.com

Have jackfruit, Bless Us

Yethadka is a small hamlet in Kasaragod district famous for its traditional check-dams, locally called as kattas.

Sice nearly half a century, in local Sadashiva temple, an unusual ritual is celebrated in karthika masa.That day appa made from jackfruit is offered to the God. Villagers gathered on the occasion hail praises for jackfruit.

This might be a token of respect for the ‘second Kalpavruksha’ of Kerala that is the lead fruit that offers local food security. Of course, offering one’s best to the God is an age old custom.

Contributed by Chandrashekhar Yethadka chandrayethadka@gmail.com

Glimpses of Wayanad Jack Fest

Wayanad Jack Fest

4-day Wayanad Jack Fest

May 20^th to 23^rd

Uravu Bamboo village will host its sixth Jackfruit festival from May 20^th to 23^rd at Kalpetta, Wayanad. Uravu was the first organization to start Jack Fests way back in 2006. Now the movement has spread to the whole Kerala state.

Venue of the fest is SKMJ High school; Kalpetta. The festival will have Open Forum, Display and live demos of value added products of jack, competitions to school children etc. Theme of this year’s fest is ‘Food for all.’

In connection with popularizing Jackfruit, Uravu has been giving training for local women in Jackfruit product making including papad, jelly, fruit bar, varatty and a score of other tasty eatables. A good number of these women will bring their products for sale at the festival.

Wayanad is well connected by road from Mysore and Kozhikode.

For details - jackfruitfestival@gmail.com

PP Daniel – 097443 00120

CD Suneesh – 096057 30334

Panruti Jackfruit misses World Record

An Indian Jumbo jackfruit that could have made world news unfortunately missed it recently.

The jackfruit in question, grown at Panruti, the jackfruit paradise of India in Cuddalore district, however made a record. Do you know how much price it brought for the grower? A neat 1000 Rs!

Grown in farmer Karunakaran’s jackfruit orchard of Melmambattu, it was weighed before selling at Panruti mandi. It was unbelievable 81 kilos!

Guinness world record for biggest jackfruit stands in the name of a Hawaiian farmer. However this weighed only 34.4 Kg. “Your jackfruit is almost the double weight of our record winning one,” hearing the news of this Panruti jackfruit, Ken Love, who reported the Hawaiian Jack for Guinness World Records, reacted. Adds he half jocularly, “If it was here, we could have sold it for 1000 dollars.”

But P. Haridoss, Assistant Director Agriculture, Panruti, himself a farmer is not as excited as Ken. “Such big jackfruit is not unusual in Panruti. In Melmambattu and Maligaipattu villages every year many huge jackfruits are grown. But none keeps it separate, weighs and gives special attention to that”, he says.

Karunakaran’s orchard has three trees that give jumbo fruits. What is the reason behind such huge jackfruits? “There are not one, but many reasons, I think”, analyses Haridoss, “first and foremost is thinning. Then the manuring plus irrigation. The genotype and soil condition are also seem to play a role.”

Take it from me; it is only a matter of time before Panruti hits world headlines through Guinness Book of World Records, thanks to its often growing jumbo jackfruits.

Shree Padre with inputs from P. Haridoss

Photo: P. Haridoss, vijayaharidoss@gmail.com