Dhar Custard Apple

Dhar district is one of the largest districts of Madhya Pradesh renowned for its excellent agricultural produce. Over the years, Dhar’s soybean, maize, rabi onion, chilli, pomegranate, wheat, garlic, green peas, banana, cotton, tomato, ginger, pulses and custard apple in particular have been in great demand in the markets of Rajasthan, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

As on 2021 – 22, Madhya Pradesh ranks second in terms of area under cultivation and production of custard apple behind Maharashtra. Custard apple (Annona squamosa L.) also known as sugar apple and locally as sitaphal or sharifa is revered for its commercial, medicinal and healing value.

The seeds, bark, leaves, roots and fruits are used in traditional medicine to cure cardiac diseases, diabetes, hyperthyroidism, cancer, skin ailments and others. Sitaphal is rich in copper, calcium, phosphorus, iron, fiber, protein and Vitamin C.

This delicious fruit attributes its name to Sita Mata who used to eat this fruit during her exile. Sitaphal derives its name from the Sanskrit words śīta which means cold and phala which means fruit and custard apple is known to have a cooling effect on the human body.

This hardy plant can survive in the harshest terrain and climatic conditions making it hugely popular among the farmers. Small and marginal farmers state that the agro – climatic conditions prevailing in this district (deep soils, medium deep soils and shallow soils rich in micronutrients and hot summers, cool winters and adequate rainfall in the monsoon season) has helped them produce excellent quality fruit every year.

The native and high – yielding varieties (Arka Neelachal Akshay and Arka Sahan) grown here have high TSS (around 24 Brix), Total Sugar (around 18 to 19 percent) and reducing sugar content (15 – 17 percent), good pulp recovery and long shelf life.

As custard apple is highly perishable with an average shelf life of 24 hours after harvesting, farmers have now started storing custard apple pulp to initiate processing of custard apple powder, beverages and ice cream. Custard apple pulp is used in desserts like basundi, rabri, jams and jelly.

Dhar custard apple is famous for its size, juice content, heady aroma and taste. One can even find the extremely rare purple – hued and pink – hued pulpy sitaphal in the local markets.

Written by Lakshmi Subramanian