The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development recalled last January that there was a 3.4% increase in the Ataulfo mango in the last year, which generates more income for producers of this variety, particularly those in the south-southeast of the country.
The general coordinator of Agriculture, Santiago Argüello Campos, stressed that this variety, which is cultivated in 23 states that represent more than 207,000 hectares, reached a production of 2,156,000 tons in 2021.
History of the Ataulfo mango
Chiapas is the entity that produces 37% nationwide, with a crop of 36,700 hectares, after 60 years ago this variety was created by the hand of Mexican engineer Hector Cano Flores.
The engineer was born in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas and studied at the Chapingo National School of Agriculture from 1946 to 1952, where he obtained the title of Agricultural Engineer.
During the 1950s, the extinct Mexican Coffee Institute, through a program called crop diversification that it implemented in order to reduce the productive supply of coffee, which had a negative impact on prices, began the studies with the intention of finding alternate species for coffee cultivation cultivated in the upper zone of the Soconusco region, in addition to the fact that in the The lower zone began the cotton plantation, which left an ecological impact and damage to the environment.
Why is it called Ataulfo?
The engineer found 32 varieties native to and typical of the singular region of Soconuscowhich lacked identification as a variety, and had their own genetic code.
Héctor Cano Flores selected, analyzed and studied five trees that were on the property of Ataulfo Morales. The engineer analyzed the behavior of the trees, the organoleptic characteristics and other parameters of the mangoes.
At that time, number 2 was classified as the best tree, a situation that gives rise to the name of the variety as “IMC M2”, colloquially called “Ataulfo” in honor of the owner of the land where the trees were grown.