Research is one of the most important areas of work in the work carried out by the National Mango Board, and this chapter is coordinated by Dr. Leonardo Ortega, who joined the NMB in 2007 as a research specialist and in 2008 was promoted to the position of Director of Research.

Dr. Ortega is in charge of coordinating all of the NMB's research activities, including research programs on production, postharvest, nutrition, and consumption. He is an agricultural engineer with a master's degree in livestock production and a doctorate in agricultural economics. Before joining the NMB, he worked for more than 15 years at the university level in Venezuela as a professor and researcher heading various extension programs.

One of the lines in which the NMB is working with greater emphasis is in the identification of mango varieties with the greatest potential for the sector. In this sense, Dr. Ortega points out that “we are developing a project to identify mango varieties that have potential for the fresh and frozen mango industry in the United States from the thousands of mango varieties that already exist. It is being conducted by the University of Florida and is in stage II. Stage I aimed to select the cultivated varieties with the greatest potential and characteristics necessary for their commercialization. In the second stage, the physical and chemical characteristics of the mango cultivars selected in the first stage are being measured.

We are also determining the sensitivity of these cultivars to cold damage and to damage from hot water quarantine treatment. As well as, consumer-level tasting tests are being carried out to identify the acceptability of these cultivars. Once phase two has concluded and the most promising cultivars have been identified, a third phase will proceed, which will consist of field evaluation of these cultivars ”.

On the other hand, another of the investigations that the NMB's research department has carried out is the development of a new container for mango that is respectful with the environment.

In this sense, Dr. Ortega points out that “the mango packaging project which has already concluded and whose objective is to improve the quality of mango packaging by improving the quality of the pallet, standardizing the size of the box and providing guidelines for the packed. To achieve this objective, we worked with the California Polytechnic State University for the design of a box and a pallet and the evaluation of several designs of corrugated cardboard boxes of 5 base that would fit a 40 * 48 pallet including the design developed by the university. The 40 "* 48" pallet as well as the 5-base corrugated cardboard box are the most used by the US agricultural products industry. "

“The results of this project were presented to the mango industry at the 2019 WFP meeting held last year and at a virtual seminar conducted by the NMB in July this year,” says Dr. Ortega.

“For more information on the results of this project, interested parties can visit this NMB website. In it, you will find the design and specifications of the 5-base box that had the best performance, as well as the design and specifications of the pallet ”, highlights Dr. Ortega.

With regard to mango patterns, the National Mango Board has also carried out interesting research. As explained by the Director of Research of the NMB “this study was conducted by Dr. Víctor Galán, a well-known researcher for his research and contributions to mango cultivation. The objectives of the project were to do a literature review on mango patterns to concentrate all the existing information in a single document that was available and could be used by mango producers. The influence of patterns on the quantitative and qualitative yield of mango has been collected in various books written on this crop, but an in-depth bibliographic review on this topic has not yet been carried out. Therefore, as Dr. Galán points out in his review, updating the existing information on the subject will contribute to improving the yield and quality of the fruit, and, therefore, also to improving the economy. from mango growers around the world.