The barefoot scientist: How a self-taught breeder gave mangoes a winter coat

Ramesh is, what you may call, a seasoned plant breeder. In the early 2000s, he developed a mango that can be frozen skin-on, and stored for months-on-end, peeled like a banana, and savoured like an ice lolly. A terrific feat because mangoes are known to have a short shelf life, usually less than 10 days (only pulp can be frozen and used later). Nearly all known commercial cultivars are susceptible to chill injury, meaning the fruit cannot tolerate sub-zero temperatures. But the variety Ramesh developed and named Amrutham, which means elixir in Telugu, defies the known boundaries of this tropical fruit.

Another early ripening variety he developed is named Swagatham (welcome). This is an intensely aromatic cultivar—one piece is enough to envelop a room with its fragrance. A third, unnamed, yields large intensely sweet fruits, a few notches higher than the sweetest commercial cultivars.

Amrutham is a promising and a unique variety of mango because of its ability to resist freezing temperatures, said M. Sankaran, principal scientist and head of the fruit crops division at the Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru. “But one has to consume the fruit in a chilled state (it cannot be thawed and consumed). We have evaluated this variety and submitted the results for registration as a farmer’s variety (under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2021, a law which recognizes the role farmers play in developing new varieties).”

That’s not all. Ramesh, despite studying till only the eighth standard, has co-authored scientific papers in international journals—on a fungus that can double up as a potent bio-pesticide. He is, in the words of an associate and old friend, a barefoot scientist.

Ramesh moves in blustery strides like a restless teenager. At six feet two inches, he is a towering presence and yet humble. In a way only a farmer can be.

Earlier this year, an entire lifetime of his work, the 40-acre farm which comprised the bulwark of his achievement as a plant breeder, was taken away. He lost access to the trees he nurtured for more than three decades (more on this later). So, at 72, he is preparing to start afresh. Nearly homeless but defiant, uncomplaining, resolute. In a way only a scientist can be.

Scientists from the nearby Bapatla Agriculture College frequented the family farm with students on site visits. Ramesh would intently listen to the on-field lectures and eventually got hooked. When he was 18, he tried his hand at plant breeding, starting with cotton and then moving on to chilies—the pungent spice crop Guntur is famous for.

Ramesh never received a formal degree but was trained by a generation of scientists—entomologists, plant physiologists, breeders and biotechnologists—who became his mentors. In the mid-80s, when M.S. Swaminathan, the agriculture scientist who crafted India’s green revolution journey, visited the Bapatla college, Ramesh badgered him with questions. Swaminathan did not have an answer to all the questions but praised Ramesh’s inquisitiveness, he recalls fondly.

One incident from the late 1970s shows what curiosity can lead one to. Following a cyclone in Guntur, Ramesh observed thousands of dead birds and agricultural insects, coated in a white powder. Something was killing these plant pests, but local scientists did not know the reason. Ramesh coaxed an entomologist to send the samples to a lab in the UK. It turned out to be Beauveria bassiana, an entomo-pathogenic fungi. In simple words, a natural bio-pesticide.

Ramesh continued his research on the fungus and co-authored multiple papers on the findings. They were published in Indian and international journals such as Biocontrol Science and Technology.

Following Ramesh’s explorations, mycology (the study of fungi) became a popular topic of investigation among the students of the Andhra University in Visakhapatnam. Multiple PhDs were done on the virulence and potency of the bassiana fungi. Ramesh’s daughter, Haritha, 36, who gave up a government job to pursue scientific research in agriculture, is now pursuing a PhD in mycology.

Here, Ramesh started by treating local snake- and scorpion-bite cases. His reputation as a homeopath spread far and wide. Additionally, he began toying with mangoes for the first time in his life. The fruit thrived in the coastal soil; Guntur, where he farmed previously, was more suited to cotton, chilli and tobacco.

On a 40-acre plot where he lived, raised his family and managed the farm, Ramesh perfected two unique chilli varieties, Arjun and Pandav (registered with the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources in 2009). The peppers came in upright clusters unlike regular ones which grew downwards. This allowed the peppers to dry on-plant (replacing the need to sun-dry after harvest) and lowered crop damage due to moisture accumulation in droop-down peppers.

At the Tarluvada farm, Ramesh developed nearly a 100 different cultivars of mangoes, two of which stood out. Amrutham and Swagatham. The first one, Amrutham, which is resistant to chill injuries and can be frozen for up to six years (as claimed by Ramesh), was developed by crossing two parental lines: Amrapali and Chinna Rasalu (a juicy, sucking variety from Andhra). None of these parental lines can resist a chill injury, but Amrutham can. How?

We don’t know for sure. Ramesh attributes this quality to the fruit’s skin which is extremely bitter and can resist pathogens (which also means little or no use of chemical pest repellents during cultivation).

The other reason? Mango genetics is wild. Each time you cross two varieties, you’ll end up with a fruit with unique traits. In technical terms, because mangoes are highly heterozygous, same parental lines can throw up uniquely different offspring (like humans). This is why mango plants are replicated by way of grafting and not via seeds. A seed of an alphonso fruit will produce a new variety with different traits. All popular commercial varieties, be it the Banaganapalle, Dasheri or Langra, are but genetic accidents that were historically identified, preserved and propagated, mostly by farmers like Ramesh.

The quality of a good breeder is to identify and nurture this genetic accident. The process can take years. It took Ramesh close to a decade and a half to stabilize his two varieties.

The creation of Amrutham is significant because Indian mangoes are known to have a short shelf life and are not amenable to transport over long distances. This is a reason why India is a marginal exporter despite being the largest producer of the fruit. Refrigeration can open up new markets and new product categories. Think of a mango ice lolly without any chemical preservatives.

“Because the mango gets more attention than anything comparable in India, numerous charlatans pass themselves as the ‘mango man’, with over-the-top claims of botanical achievements. But K. Ramesh is an actual genius,” said Sopan Joshi, journalist and author of the book, Mangifera indica: A biography of the Mango (Aleph, 2024).

“Swagatham is one of the finest fragrant mangoes I’ve ever tasted. And Amrutham is a miracle in how it stays under refrigeration. They are both remarkable and novel,” Joshi added.

Ramesh has outstanding qualities, Joshi said, based on his meetings with him, while researching for the book. “One, his genius comes from an overwhelming love of plants; I was struck by how joyous he gets among plants. Two, he’s a school dropout who has made an immense effort to learn botany from scientists; Three, he has an earthiness and humility that scientists often lack; he is a doer, not a talker.”

In October last year, the engineering company that owns the farm asked Ramesh to vacate the research station without giving any reason. It came as a shock. Overnight, he was rendered homeless and lost access to the farm.

Although the engineering company gave no reasons, Ramesh’s family ascribes it to soaring land prices. Google announced it would invest $15 billion in an artificial intelligence hub in the region, causing land prices to spiral upward.

Ramesh moved in with his wife (his daughters are married and live in Visakhapatnam) to a charitable homeopathy clinic, run from a plot of government land, just outside the farm. With some success, he had managed to shift a portion of the mango germplasm (by way of grafting) to a 2.5 acre plot he owns in a neighbouring village.

“Our fear is that we might lose access to some of the finest mango germplasm and mother plants. We don’t know what the company plans to do with the farm,” said Haritha, Ramesh’s daughter and the PhD student mentioned earlier.

On a hot late April afternoon, sitting on a plastic chair on the road adjacent to the clinic, Ramesh appeared unperturbed. “I don’t want to talk about this. I will start afresh.”

Scores of patients were still waiting to see him. Some had come from hundreds of kilometres away. They all sat under the shade, in a waiting area near the dispensary. Some of his former patients, mostly retired government employees and engineers living in Visakhapatnam, visit the clinic every weekend to volunteer. They tally patient records, measure vitals, and note down symptoms and prescriptions. A record room next door is a repository of more than 165,000 patients he has treated till date.

Ramesh, as a father, has successfully grafted his passion into his daughters. His elder daughter is an agriculture scientist, the younger one is a qualified, practising homeopath. The son, a shade defiant, pursued formal medicine, and is an MBBS doctor. Like the genetic diversity of mangoes in his lost orchard, there is enough professional diversity in the Kongara household.

But what connects his two disparate passions, homeopathy and agriculture? “The science of mineral nutrition which is essential to both plant and humans… the same circuit connects all life,” Ramesh tried to explain, stitching up words, mixing English and Hindi.