Special lychee variety: Customers compete to buy, earn 800 million/ha but people are still 'afraid' to grow it

Holding a bunch of lychees, each one big and round, with thin, pinkish-white skin and smooth, Mrs. Pham Thi Hoa, Thanh Quang commune (Thanh Ha, Hai Duong) boasted that this was a special white egg lychee variety, very rare to grow. Even in Hai Duong, many people may not have had the chance to enjoy this specialty lychee.

White egg lychee is the earliest type of lychee to be harvested in Thanh Ha lychee capital, so it is extremely expensive. Ms. Hoa grows more than 100 trees in her garden. When the fruit is ripe, customers from all over the province drive their cars to buy it as gifts.

"Some buyers buy a few dozen kilos, some buy a lot, up to a hundred kilos. I pick and sell as many as customers order," she said. For more than ten years growing white egg lychees, she has not had to sell even one fruit at the market. In fact, she doesn't have enough to sell to customers.

White egg lychee has the largest fruit size among current lychee varieties. Photo: Thach Thao

This year, Mrs. Hoa sold the first litchis of the season for 90,000 VND/kg. Currently, the price of litchis ranges from 70,000-80,000 VND/kg. Every day at around 2am, she and her husband go to the garden to pick litchis. The harvested litchis are gathered in the yard, left for 8-9am to be weighed and sold to customers who have pre-ordered them.

Over the past 10 days, her family has started harvesting white egg lychee. The amount of lychee sold is estimated at nearly 2 tons. This type of lychee in her garden has not been harvested yet.

"White eggplant is very expensive but difficult to care for. In this area, few people grow it," she said. With this year's selling price, Ms. Hoa expects to earn about 160 million VND.

Mr. Nguyen Van Hien, Director of Hop Duc HD Agricultural Service Cooperative (Thanh Ha), admitted that the white egg lychee variety is very "fickle".

This type of fabric is very difficult to care for, so gardeners limit expanding the area. Photo: Thach Thao

As a lychee variety that ripens early, the time when the tree flowers and bears fruit depends a lot on the weather. If the weather is too cold, or there is no rain, the fruit-bearing rate will be low. This is also the reason why many people are reluctant to grow it.

However, white egg lychee is in high demand, selling for 3-4 times higher than other types of lychee. In particular, this lychee is always in a state of supply not meeting demand.

"This season, the cooperative's output of white lychee is only about 10 tons. Customers said they bought it all when the fruit was still green. It's like that every year," said Mr. Hien. 1kg of white lychee yields 22-23 fruits, and his cooperative sells it wholesale at 75,000-90,000 VND/kg depending on the time.

According to Mr. Hien, due to the high selling price, 1 sao of white egg lychee brings in revenue of about 29 million VND. Calculating, farmers can earn nearly 800 million VND from planting 1 hectare if the harvest is good.

Customers compete to buy delicious lychees. Photo: Thach Thao

Mr. Nguyen Khac Tien - Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ameii Vietnam Joint Stock Company, said that the company is purchasing a large amount of fabric to distribute to stores and supermarkets nationwide.

"The company distributes other types of lychee for both domestic and export markets. Only white egg lychee is available for sale domestically," he revealed. In recent years, Ameii has packaged this type of lychee with full packaging and labels to enter the gift market segment.

Speaking with VietNamNet reporter, Mr. Vu Viet Anh - Chairman of Thanh Ha District People's Committee, informed that the lychee area of ​​the whole district this year is about 3,265 hectares, with an estimated output of 40,000 tons. White egg lychee only accounts for about 10% of the lychee area of ​​Thanh Ha district.

White eggplant is often purchased by customers at home, farmers do not have to bring it to the market to sell. Photo: Tam An

This hybrid lychee variety is also quite early. Many trees are now 50-60 years old. However, gardeners are not interested in the white egg lychee variety, because it is not only difficult to care for but also has unstable yields. Therefore, the area planted with white egg lychee in the district is quite modest. The supply is scarce, combined with the reason that lychee ripens early, so they are always expensive.

"The egg lychee has a huge size, the largest of all the lychees available today. If the season is good, 1 hectare of egg lychee can yield more than 10 tons of fruit," he said.

Just calculating the average selling price of 60,000 VND/kg, 1 hectare of lychee will yield 600 million VND. If the lychee crop is in season and the price is good, farmers will earn up to 800 million VND/ha. Like last year, there was a time when lychee was sold at the garden price of 120,000 VND/kg, said Mr. Vu Viet Anh.