India mango export season

April and May for Alphonso, with Kesar behind it into June. It is the export India is famous for and the one that barely uses a container: the fruit is picked mature, ripens fast and is worth enough per kilo to fly.

India is several seasons rather than one. APEDA gives the peak harvest as April to May in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and April to June in Karnataka. Gujarat peaks in May, Uttar Pradesh in June and Bihar in June and July. The northern varieties, Dasheri, Langra and Chausa, come last. In 2025 India timed its mango promotion in the Gulf for early July, the peak of that northern season. The window above is the Alphonso and Kesar window, and mangoes are still leaving the north in June and July.

Alphonso comes from the Konkan coast of Maharashtra. Harvest moves from Sindhudurg through Ratnagiri to Raigad, and Ratnagiri supplies for longest. It is also the least predictable crop on the calendar. In 2025 yields fell 35–75% after the February flowering failed and rain came in May. In 2026 the season ran 20–25 days late: long monsoon rains delayed flowering, then heavy winter dew scorched the blooms, and real volume only started at the end of April. Kesar, from Gujarat, sells at 40–45% below Alphonso, and its exports are growing while Alphonso’s shrink.

India exported 31,819 tonnes of mangoes worth $54 million in 2025–26. The UAE, the UK, the United States, Kuwait and Canada were the main buyers, in that order.

Each market sets its own treatment. The United States takes only irradiated fruit, at a minimum dose of 400 gray, pre-cleared in India by APHIS inspectors under an agreement with APEDA. The Maharashtra marketing board’s centre at Vashi treated 1,413 tonnes for the US in 2025, and when its dosimetry failed on 8–9 May, 25 tonnes were rejected on arrival. Gujarat has had its own APHIS-approved irradiation plant in Ahmedabad since 2022. The EU asks for a certificate showing freedom from fruit flies, through a pest-free area or an effective treatment. An APEDA-approved Kesar packhouse in Rajkot dips fruit at 48–52°C for the UK, US and Canada. Japan requires vapour heat treatment, and it suspended Indian mangoes for 2026 after its inspectors found faults at a treatment plant in Uttar Pradesh.

The fruit does not keep long. The University of Hawaii postharvest guide gives 14 to 28 days for mature-green mangoes at 10–13°C, depending on variety, and most varieties are injured below 10°C. Controlled atmosphere adds little. Sea freight is still being proved. In June 2026 an ICAR and APEDA protocol shipped 4.3 tonnes of Banganapalli to Singapore by reefer in 16 days, at ₹13–20 a kilo against ₹150–250 by air. Read the window above as the crop calendar and check the routing separately.