The exhaustive and comprehensive cultivation of vegetables, flowers and fruits is referred to as horticulture. Horticulture in the country has been thoroughly involved with the cultivation of fruits in India, besides also laying simultaneous stress upon vegetables and gardening of rare plants. This very study of fruit and vegetable production is an arena, which provides sizeable subject of enormous scope, if pursued passionately in order to take India to great heights to cultivating fruits in a strategic manner. Cultivation of fruits in India and in the international scenario, involves the consolidation of wide spectrum of disciplines. As the new technologies and developments have gradually become readily available in the country, the cropping and cultivating systems and production practices have also remained witness to significant metamorphoses. Indeed, if dug deep into the fascinating history of fruit cultivation in the country, it can verily be seen that the Silk Route had played a key role in the ushering of various kinds of these delicious sweet and fleshy things called `fruits` since pre Christian era, especially from countries like China and Egypt.

Fruit cultivation in India is one such major commercial and business sector for exporting merchandise and shipping, from which much of the international revenue is incurred. Since Independence, the country has been trying to come to terms with the dazzling prospects of exporting commercial business and the land being essentially agrarian and rural, possesses ample scope for lands for cultivation and farming. However, the erstwhile tools and implements of the Central Indian administration, is being upgraded every fiscal year, a domain which truly looks towards guaranteed future. Numerous kinds of precepts, rules and practices that were common a few years ago in India, may just not be no longer be current. India has been perhaps justly renamed as the `fruit and vegetable basket of the world`, a factor that weighs fascinatingly upon the cultivation of fruits in the country. India serving as home to a supreme variety of fruits and vegetables, holds an exclusive position in production figures amongst other countries. More than 90 percent of India`s exports in fresh products travels to west Asia and East European markets. India`s exports of fresh fruits and vegetables has amplified by 2437.12 crore rupees in the 2007-08 financial year. This amplification list merrily incorporates the products like walnut, fresh mangos, fresh grapes and umpteen other fresh fruits and vegetables.

Since prehistoric times, India has served as an agriculturally dependant country. Hundreds of fruits and vegetable types are grown in all parts of India. For such a thriving business to network itself, the Indian industrial strategy has been known to have expanded from grass-roots level, onto big markets, dealing globally. The cultivated fresh fruit and vegetable reach small scale fruits and vegetables suppliers, they are then sent to local markets as well as fruits and vegetables exporters, who in turn make baskets of shipping of fruits, dealing with international buyers. The last few decades have witnessed the number of Indian fruit vegetables suppliers and fruits vegetables exporters rising to an all time high. The total production of fruits and vegetables in the world is approximately 370 metric ton. India proudly ranks first in the world, with an annual output of 32 metric ton, taking the fruit cultivation of Indian graph shooting sky-high. While there are almost 180 families of fruits that are cultivated all over the world, citrus fruits represent approximately 20 percent of world`s total fruit production. Major Indian cultivated fruits consist of mango, banana, citrus fruits, apple, guava, papaya, pineapple and grapes. The fruits are further also processed into various products such as fruit juices and concentrates, canned fruit, dehydrated fruit, jams and jellies etc.

India with its current production of approximately 32 million metric ton of fruits, accounts for about 8 percent of the world`s fruit production. The diverse agro-climatic zones present in the country, makes it possible to practically grow almost all varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables in India. The fruit cultivation and production in India has recorded a growth rate of 3.9 percent, whereas the fruit processing sector has grown at approximately 20 percent per annum. However, the growth rates have been expansively higher for frozen fruits and vegetables (121%) and dehydrated fruits and vegetables (24 percent). There exist more than 4000 fruit processing units in India, with an combined capacity of more than 12 lakh metric ton (less than 4 percent of total fruits produced). It is reckoned that approximately 20 percent of the production of processed fruits is intended for exports, the rest supplies to the defence, institutional sectors and household consumption; fruit cultivation in India however depends a lot upon mango and mango-based products, constituting 50 percent of exports.

The fruits and vegetable cultivation and processing industry in India is highly decentralised in content. A large number of units are in the cottage/home scale and small scale sector, possessing small capacities upto 250 tonnes per annum. But big Indian and multinational companies in the sector possess enormous capacities in the range of 30 tonnes per hour more or less. Since liberalisation and pulling out of excise duty on fruit and vegetable products, there has been substantial rise in the growth rate of the industry.

The Indian fruit cultivation, especially mangoes and bananas, are now in huge demand outside the country. India is a producer of tropical fruits like coconuts, jackfruits, cashew nuts, pineapples, bananas and oranges. Of temperate fruits, apples, plums, peaches, almonds, apricots and grapes are grown in abundance. While Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh lead in the fruit production of the temperate region, others are grown in various parts of peninsular India and Northern Plains. India brings in pots of foreign exchange by exporting cashew nuts too. Part of the raw cashew nuts is imported and treated here, before they are later re-exported. The north eastern region of India holds mammoth horticulture potential. States like Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Manipur have favourable soil and climatic conditions and also have great scope for temperate fruit cultivation in these parts of India to augment business management. Presently stone fruits like peach, plum and apricot and pome fruits like apple and pear are grown in small scale but the future is bright and there is great scope for the expansion of temperate fruit culture.

Fruit cultivation in India has received additional impetus in the format of various state governments realising their functionary role in boosting c nationwide commerce. As such, the Haryana government has been lending grants for setting up orchards under the National Horticulture Mission. Under this plan, a special grant of 9,750 rupees per hectare is provided to the farmers for cultivation of guava, 15,750 rupees per hectare for mango, 11,250 rupees for ber and 18,525 rupees for cheeku. This amount is to be disbursed in three years time, according to sources. Ample investment opportunities does exist in expanding the export market for fruit cultivation in India. A modifying acceptance of new products with market development efforts have also been witnessed since long, given the fact that there exists a good international demand for certain fruits and vegetable products. India produces 41 percent of world`s mangoes, 23 percent bananas, 24 percent cashew nuts and 36 percent green peas. The total export value of the main exporting fruit crop from India is mango. Exports of mangoes, grapes, mushrooms have started going to the United Kingdom, Middle East, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Mango, termed as the `king of fruits in India`, accounts for 40 percent of the national fruit production almost every year. It occupies 42 percent of the country`s 2205.6 thousand hectares land under fruit cultivation in the Indian subcontinent. India had exported 54350.80 metric ton of fresh mangoes with the value of 127.42 crore rupees in 2007-08. The major varieties of mangoes exported include - Dashehri, Alphonso, Kesar, Banganpalli, Kesar, Dusheri, Langra, Chausa, Mallika and. Swarnrekha. The major markets for Indian mangoes comprise U.A.E, Bangladesh, U.K, Saudi Arabia and Nepal. India is verily approximated to account for around 60 percent (9.5 million tonnes) of the world`s mango production of 15.7 million tones. The major cultivation and production areas of this fleshy fruit in Indian subcontinent are in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Gujarat and Maharashtra. India is one of the leading exporters of fresh table grapes to the global market; India`s export of grapes has increased from 301.92 crore rupees in 2006-07 to 317.83 crore rupees in 2007-08. The leading destinations for export of Indian comprise Netherlands, U.K, U.A.E, Bangladesh and Belgium.

As has already been stated that the country is the largest producer of fruits in the world, acknowledging it as the fruit basket of world, India`s fruit cultivation has been orchestrated after several application of masterminds to have thus reached such a position. The major fruits cultivated in India are mangos, grapes, apple, apricots, orange, banana, avocados, guava, lichi, papaya, sapota and water melons. This is due to its potential in different agro climatic zones. India`s export of fresh fruits to the major countries consists of U.K, Netherlands, U.A.E, Russia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Fruit cultivation in India further has always remained a recipient of huge respect and admiration, owing to its marvellous produces of deciduous fruits, including pome fruits (apple and pear) and stone fruits (peach, plum, apricot and cherry) in considerable quantities. Deciduous fruits and its cultivation in India mainly takes place in the north Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and in the Uttar Pradesh hills. The north-eastern hills region, comprising the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur and Sikkim, also grow some of the deciduous fruits on a restricted scale. Due to initiation and adaptation of low chilling cultivars of crops like peach, plum and pear, they are also presently being grown commercially in certain areas of the north Indian plains too. Out of all the deciduous fruits, apple is the most vital in terms of production and extent.

From amongst the umpteen and healthy and palatable deciduous fruit cultivation in India, apple demands and calls for incredible attention. Indeed, apple was introduced into the country by the British Raj in the Kullu Valley of the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh as far back as 1865. On the other hand, the coloured `delicious` cultivars of apple were introduced to the Shimla hills of the same state in 1917. The apple cultivar Ambri, is measured as indigenous to Kashmir and had been grown long before Western introductions. Pears and other deciduous fruits were domesticated lucratively during the early part of the 20th century, although some of them were accounted to occur under semi-wild conditions much earlier. Apricot was found growing in the drier pockets of north-western Himalayas and two apricot varieties, locally acknowledged as Halman and Rakchaikarpo, are reported to be indigenous to the Leh-Ladakh region Jammu and Kashmir state.

Sweet cherry was introduced from Europe before India`s independence in 1947, whereas, commercial cultivars of sour cherry have been fetched primarily from USA in more recent years. The European and Japanese plum kinds are cultivated both in high and low hill areas. A plum variety `Santa Rosa`, reported to be a hybrid between Japanese and American species, predominates (70-80 percent) plantations in the Himalayan hills. Low chilling cultivars of peach and nectarine such as Flordasum, Flordared, and Sunred nectarine are booming introductions to the north-Indian plains. Some local selections of peach (Shan-e-Punjab, Sharbati), plum (Jamuni, Alubhokhara) and sand pear (Patharnakh) have also taken fruit cultivation in India on a grand commercial scale in sub-tropical marginal chilling areas of north India.

Fruit cultivation in India, quite understandably grows most prolific in the areas of the Himalayas, with abundance speaking out from every angle. The Uttar Pradesh hills, particularly the Kumaon hills division, possesses exceptional advantage of early harvest of apple, principally due to cultivation of early maturing varieties like Early Shanburry, Fanny and Benoni. The early maturing varieties are harvested 2-3 weeks before the onset of fresh apple from Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir and hence, fetch very moneymaking prices. Deciduous fruits, covering pome and stone fruits contribute significantly to the horticulture economy of India. Truly, cultivation of fruits in India, does depend upon the success of plantation, harvest, soils and a perfect ambience of brilliant minds.