Mangoes start bearing fruit in Qatar

Around 3,000 trees in a mango orchard developed in the Ras Laffan Industrial City (RLIC), 80 km northeast of the Qatari capital of Doha, have started bearing mature-green, ready-to-pluck fruits, Qatar’s Peninsula daily said. The trees were planted across a four-acre plot four years ago and now the trees are around four- to five-feet high. Each tree is now laden with 10 to 20 fruits, the report said. The whole project came about following a trip to India by Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy and Industry Abdullah bin Hamad Al- Attiyah some years back. During the course of the trip, Al-Attiyah visited RIL’s Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat and was attracted by a mango orchard there. Called Dhirubhai Ambani Lakhi Baugh, it was the realization of a dream of the Reliance founder to grow an orchard like the one Mogul Emperor Akbar had centuries back. According to the Peninsula report, after the Qatari minister expressed interest in having a similar orchard, officials from Reliance visited Qatar to inspect the site located at RLIC. “Experts from the company (Reliance Petroleum) surveyed the proposed site in Ras Laffan in June 2002 and the project was launched in 2004,” the newspaper quoted RLIC sources as saying. Today, as many as 10 varieties of the fruit are being grown in the orchard that is located on the northeastern corner of RLIC.