Border gate closed, Nghe An watermelon still has 'good harvest, good price'

This year's spring watermelon crop is a bumper one, with yields reaching 1.6 tons per sao in some places. Photo: Thanh Phuc

This spring crop, Mr. Cao Van Tai's family (Hamlet 2, Dien Thanh Commune, Dien Chau District) planted 7 saowatermelon,including 3 sao planted 15 days earlier. Started sowing from the first lunar month, invested nearly 1.5 million VND from land preparation, seeds, fertilizers and after nearly 3 months of care, harvested in early April. This year, Mr. Tai's melons all have outstanding productivity of 1.6 tons/sao, the melons are big, long, succulent skin and standard sugar content. Therefore, the selling price is quite high, at the beginning of the season it was 8,000 VND/kg, now it is 7,000 VND/kg.

Mr. Tai said: "Compared to last year, the price of watermelon has doubled, traders buy all the watermelons as soon as they are harvested. This spring, 1 sao of watermelon brings in nearly 11 million VND in revenue, after deducting expenses, there is still a profit of 8-9 million VND."

The melon crop is good so farmers are very excited to stay in the fields to harvest. Photo: Thanh Phuc

The whole Dien Thanh commune has 20 hectaresSpring watermelon,Of which, 10 hectares have been harvested. Ms. Thai Thi Lam, President of the Farmers' Association of Dien Thanh commune, said: "Despite the unfavorable weather and heavy rain, this year's melon crop is good. In particular, if last year, melons were congested and unsold, and had to be "rescued", this year, the early harvested melons were purchased by traders at high prices, and people made a lot of profit."

As the locality that grows the most watermelons in Nam Dan district, this year the entire Thuong Tan Loc commune planted nearly 200 hectares of watermelons, and currently more than 20 hectares are ready for harvest.

Nghe An watermelons have thin skin, are juicy and sweet, so they are popular with consumers. Currently, the price of watermelons in the field ranges from 6,000 to 8,000 VND/kg. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Mr. Tran Xuan Hung, Director of Thuong Tan Loc Cooperative (Nam Dan) said: "Unlike in 2021, when melons had both a bad harvest and low prices, this year watermelons have both a good harvest and good prices. In Thuong Tan Loc, melons yield 1.3-1.5 tons/sao. Although the current purchase price from traders has decreased by 1,000-2,000 VND/kg to 6,000-7,000 VND/kg compared to the beginning of the season, it turns out that for each sao, people "pocket" 7-8 million in profit, an income many times higher than growing corn, peanuts, and beans."

These days, large trucks of traders buying melons from northern provinces such as Thanh Hoa, Hai Duong, Thai Binh, Quang Ninh... are pouring into watermelon fields inNghia Dan melon "capital"to purchase and transport for consumption everywhere. Most concentrated in localities such as Nghia Son, Nghia Lam, Nghia Binh, Nghia Phu...

Traders from all over buy melons in the fields. People sell them all as they harvest. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Compared to other localities, Nghia Dan people planted 15 days earlier, and are currently in the harvest season. To avoid the situation of "supply" exceeding "demand" at the same time, people have planted in a rolling manner, earlier than other localities in the province, and each household, on their tea fields, also takes turns, planting 15-20 days apart, harvesting and selling out one tea, then another tea enters the harvest season.

Good harvest, good price, melon growers are very excited. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Mr. Tran Dung, a melon trader in Nghia Dan, said: “This year, although China is “closing the border”, the domestic market is very open. Melons are consumed quickly and sold at high prices when tourist areas open to welcome guests, restaurants and hotels reopen, and activities such as festivals, weddings, etc. are “normalized”, so demand has increased sharply. To have melons to supply the market, we come to see the melons and deposit in advance with the field owners, and will cut and sell them on the day. In particular, this year's melons have beautiful appearance and higher quality than previous years, so they are very easy to sell. In the past 15 days, thousands of tons of melons have been exported to the domestic market.”

In particular, with the method of planting in alternating seasons, farmers can harvest continuously, as soon as they harvest, traders buy everything, and people have income. This is the motivation for people after harvesting this crop of melons, they will focus on making seeds to grow summer-autumn melons.

Many watermelon fields are flooded, people are pumping water and draining ditches to "save" the watermelons. The productivity of these watermelon fields has decreased due to the impact of heavy rain. Photo: Thanh Phuc

However, in some localities, late spring melon crops such as Nghi Long (Nghi Loc), Thuong Tan Loc (Nam Dan)... were affected by unusual rains from May 15, causing many melon areas to be flooded. Afterwards, the sun rose, causing the plants to wilt and the roots to rot; some areas of young fruit were crushed and damaged, resulting in a 20-30% reduction in yield compared to early ripening melon crops.