A Northern Territory farmer is adding to the reputation of the mango as one of Australia's most iconic tropical fruits by breeding a new variety that tastes like coconut.

Leo Skliros, from Berry Springs, south of Darwin, is an experienced grower of the popular Kensington Pride variety.

But after years of tinkering away on his Berry Springs orchard, he says he's on to something better.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 5 minutes 14 seconds 5 m Mango farmer Leo Skliros talks about the 'malibu' ( Marty McCarthy ) Download 2.4 MB

"It's an earlier variety that seems to flower quite easily," he said.

"I was thinking about calling it 'malibu' because it has a slight 'coconuty' flavour to it."

Mr Skliros says he stumbled across the flavour by a chance and suggests the coconut-mango combination was unintentional.

He says development of the ‘malibu’ has taken three to four years, and that it was hard to predict the outcome of the crossbreeding in the early years.

"It's a longer shaped mango because one of the parents is an Irwin, which is a longer red variety," he said.

The other parent is a Kensington Pride, a popular choice for growers and breeders due to its size and strong flavour.

Mr Skliros says there is the potential for consumers to get confused if too many new varieties come onto the market. However, he sees crossbreeding as a way forward for growers.

"A lot of people have been looking at new varieties and there's a few that have been out on the market," he said.

"But as we've seen with other varieties of fruit, such as apples, it's the way of the future and if you go into the supermarket now there's several different types of apples and new ones coming out all the time."

He says the aim of his crossbreeding experiment isn’t just to create a better tasting and looking mango, but also a more practical one for farmers.

"It needs to be farmer friendly as well. If it's a heavy-bearing [tree], it's easier to pick and more economically viable for the farmer."

Mr Skliros says he is still two to three years away from producing the fruit on a commercial scale.