Mango Fest 2012 will be taking place this weekend Saturday, August 18th and Sunday, August 19th at the Christian Valley Agricultural Station. Mango Fest will be an all day family-type event running from 9:30am until 7:30 in the evening.

For the first time the Antigua Black Pineapple will be joining the Mango Fest. The highly touted Antigua Black will be sharing the mango spotlight in an effort to bring more awareness of the fruit mainly to visitors to the island and to the Fest.

Despite sporadic weather conditions, Committee Member for Mango Fest 2012 Carol Faye George says a lot of plans have been put into the annual festival. She says that last year’s rainy season was so excessive that a lot of the nutrients were washed out of the soil, resulting in a smaller yield of mangoes for this season.

While this year’s Mango crop may be slightly smaller than normal, patrons of Mango Fest will be able to sample a variety of mangoes though purchase quantities may be smaller.

Christian Valley Agricultural Station propagates over 26 varieties of mango some indigenous to the island and others introduced.

Many of those cultivated at the Agricultural Station will be on display and available for purchase; Black Mango, Julie Mango, Hackett, Belly-full, Edward, Pinero, Tommy Atkins are just a few of the types that will be present.

On hand at the festival will be some of the country’s agro-processors displaying products such as: jams, jellies, sherbets, pies, cakes, hot sauce and the like, which many of the processors plan to make available for the international market.

As for the Antigua Black Pineapple, an awareness day was held recently bringing to light many uses and properties of pineapple that many were unaware of. The Pineapple Awareness Day also informed pineapple lovers that there are at least 5 other types of pineapples propagated on island other than the popular Antigua Black.

There will be delectable concoctions of mango and pineapple delights available at Mango Fest 2012.