The start in Jazan
Mangoes were first grown on trial in 1972 at the Agricultural Research Center in Jazan, part of the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, which still has the Kingdom's oldest mango tree, about 30 metres tall. Saudipedia dates the real start of mango growing in Saudi Arabia to 1982, in the Jazan region.
Between 1982 and 1984 the centre, working with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), introduced international varieties from places with conditions like Jazan's, including Florida in the United States, India, Egypt, Sudan and Australia. Years of agricultural research confirmed that Jazan suits the crop, which spread through the region and became one of its high-yield cash crops.
The 2022 figures
In 2022 the Jazan region had about one million mango trees on 19,109 farms, producing about 65,000 tonnes a year, part of it exported. Sabya Governorate has one of the largest mango farms in the region, with more than 30,000 trees and more than 600 tonnes a year.
Mangoes are grown in the governorates of Baish, Abu Arish and Sabya, and production cycles vary with the conditions in each.
Varieties
More than sixty mango varieties are now grown in the Kingdom, among them Zebda (from Egypt, planted in 1984), Hindi (Egypt, 1988), Dabsha (Egypt, 2010), Glenn (Florida, 1988), Julie (Florida, 1986), Zill (Florida, 1984), Tommy Atkins and Palmer (Florida, 1998), Kensington Pride (Australia, 1998), Carabao (the Philippines, 1989), Mallika and Langra (India, 2008), and Einab Yemeni (Yemen).
Season and growing conditions
The harvest begins in mid-March and peaks in May. Trees are planted in deeply ploughed fields, can live about a hundred years, start fruiting in their fourth year, and yield more from the eighth to the fifteenth.
They suit light yellow soils, deep loams or well-drained gravelly ground of balanced acidity, and a humid, relatively hot climate: humidity limits leaf scorch from high temperatures, while budding, flowering and ripening need a dry spell.
Support and the festival
The Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture supports mango growing under the Sustainable Agricultural Rural Development Program. Through the Agricultural Research Center it offers soil and water analysis to choose suitable varieties and fertiliser programmes, field visits and technical guidance, and sells seedlings to farmers at nominal prices.
The first mango festival season was launched in 2005, and the festival has been held in Jazan every year since as a tourism event showing mango varieties and other fruit such as guava, figs and bananas.