An Indian agricultural university claims to have developed a seedless mango variety that will be released to local growers for potential export opportunities, the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) reported.

The Sindhu mango was originally developed at a regional fruit research station in the state of Maharashtra, but its first release to growers will be almost 2,000km (1,242mi) away in the state of Bihar.

"We have developed a seedless mango variety from hybrids of mango varieties Ratna and Alphonso," Bihar Agriculture University (BAU) horticulture department chairman V.B. Patel was quoted as saying.

"We are happy and enthuastic as well as confident and hopeful of improving the seedless mango variety."

The story reported the variety had shown good fruiting on a three-year-old plant this year, and generally matured mid-July.

BAU vice chancellor M.L. Choudhary told the news service that plants of the variety would be recreated on an experimental basis, and would be made available to Bihar mango growers next season.

"The seedless variety also has good export potential. The university would provide quality plants to mango growers in 2015 to exploit the export market," he was quoted as saying.

The story described the variety as "finely textured and juicy, with a rich, sweet and distinctive flavour when mature".

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