I’ve always been a dreamer. Nightmares of little Huck’s past often merged the worlds of cinema classics The Dark Crystal and Tron. Decked out in head-to-toe black Lycra (nothing much has changed) with neon stripes, I’d run through swampy scrub, shooting my laser gun at the ghastly things grabbing at me with outstretched arms. I’d wake in the most horrible sweat.

When I land in Katherine, NT, it’s hotter than the devil’s armpit and sweating is top of mind. I glance at the weather app on my phone to read the seven-day forecast. Every day is 34°C, as if they’ve given up predicting. It should more accurately read, “Look mate, it’s bloody hot, okay”. The joy of a glorious downpour lasts seconds, to be replaced by a sauna of steam rising from the soil.

The trip out to Peter Mark’s Ballongilly Mango Farm is a reminder that I really must update my wardrobe. Something other than black, perhaps.

Anyway, when I think of mangoes, laser guns aren’t the first thing that come to mind, but Australia is an odd and innovative place. Mango farmers across our big brown land are now using near-infrared (NIR) technology to deliver a better mango-eating experience. But they’re not running around the outback all trigger-happy like little Huck imagined.

“The gun shoots a beam of light into the mango and reads the internals of the fruit,” says Peter, a 30-year mango-farm veteran. “I don’t understand the science, but it gives you a dry-matter read-out so you know the exact time to harvest. You want 15 per cent dry matter as a minimum, 18 as a maximum.”

Okay, so back up, what the hell is dry matter?

“It’s a measure of maturity in the fruit,” explains Peter.

Mangoes store starch and sugar. Dry matter is the sum of the two (plus a couple of other components). As the fruit ripens, the starch converts to sugar. Measuring the dry matter delivers a ratio of starch to sugar as a precise indicator of how the ripe fruit will taste. Accordingly, 15 per cent provides that sweet, seductive aroma; the soft, honey flesh with juices that run down your arm.

This new technology is a million light years away from the old, time-consuming method. Traditionally, cheeks would be cut from selected fruit before being grated, weighed and dried in an oven or microwave along with a jar of water to prevent burning. You could then read the dry matter and decide whether or not to pick.

“I’d go around the orchard and bring fruit home at the end of the day. We’d dry them while we were eating dinner,” says Peter.

Mango farming is quite unique, just like the fruit, which is tricky to handle. If it’s not managed, an acid sac where the stem meets the fruit sprays a dangerous caustic liquid on picking, burning skin and leaving severe marks called sap burn on the fruit. “It’ll take the paint off a motor car,” says Peter.

The black dots or lines you see on some mangoes testify to a fruit that’s caught a bit of acid spray when picked. To avoid it, mangoes are harvested still attached to the stem and placed in a water bath where the stem is removed while submerged.

Back to flavour – which is everything. The mango industry has bought a number of F-750 Produce Quality Meters to cover regions where there are assessors on the ground, to help farmers find the best fruit for our faces. There are also dry-matter testing guns in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane markets to monitor fruit as it moves through the system.

It’s about improving the standard of an entire industry, rather than every farmer for themselves. It’s a boon for consumers, and the benefits are in the eating.

“It might be one single piece of fruit that someone is going to buy, but it’s their right to have it very, very enjoyable,” says Peter.

“When I go shopping, I want whatever I am buying to be just the way I expect it to be,” he adds. “That’s why we want all mangoes to be a great experience, not just mine.”