Nghe An has about 3,500 hectares of rice husks.
This summer-autumn crop, Nghe An has about 3,500 hectares of rice with dead rice. According to the recommendations of the Department of Agriculture, these are dangerous "disease nests" that harm rice plants.
Walking along the communes of Quynh Giang, Quynh Ba, Quynh Hong (Quynh Luu), one sees vast fields where people do not grow summer-autumn rice but instead grow regenerated rice, also known as dead rice. Each field has sparsely scattered leaves and rice flowers, green flowers, and ripe flowers.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh in Quynh Ba commune is visiting the rice fields and shares: The family has 3 sao of rice, all of which are left to wither. Compared to conventionally cultivated rice, leaving rice to wither has the advantage of low investment costs, no need to prepare the land for planting, less investment in fertilizer and care, short harvest time. However, the yield is low, every year leaving rice to "wither" only reaches 80-100 kg/sao, sometimes when the crop fails, it only gets 30-40 kg/sao.
Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tung - Chairman of Quynh Ba Commune People's Committee said: The whole Quynh Ba commune only planted about 10 hectares of summer-autumn rice, the remaining 310 hectares of rice were left. The reason is that many people think that the summer-autumn crop often has pests and floods, so they do not produce summer-autumn rice, leaving the rice to die to reduce investment costs.
Mr. Nguyen Van Truong - Head of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Quynh Luu district said: Although the district does not include in the structure and does not encourage people to leave rice husks, however, many communes still have the habit of leaving rice husks, the whole district currently has over 1,500 hectares of rice husks. Through inspection, this year's rice husk crop is not a good crop, expected to have a very low yield, about 40-50 kg/sao. In fact, leaving rice husks is not effective, cannot improve the soil for the next crop, especially, the production of rice husks gives rise to many pests and diseases that cause general harm to rice production in the whole region.
Traveling along National Highway 7B and 48 through Dien Chau district these days, we can see that on both sides of the fields, besides some areas that have been planted with summer-autumn rice, there are fields of rice that are in the flowering stage. Mr. Nguyen Minh Quang in Dien Thai commune shared: The reason why we produce rice is because the land here is deep and often flooded, recently fertilizer has increased sharply, if we cultivate the land to plant summer-autumn rice, we are afraid of weather risks, leaving rice without care, at the end of the season we are lucky to earn 70-80 kg/sao.
The representative of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Dien Chau district added: Dien Chau district currently has over 800 hectares of rice, concentrated in the communes of Dien Lam, Dien Thai, Dien My, Dien Doai... In addition to some low-lying areas where people are afraid of flooding and leaving rice, in some highland areas such as Dien Lam and Dien Doai, farmers still produce rice because the lakes and dams in these areas are dry, making it difficult to produce summer-autumn rice, so people leave rice. Most of the rice areas are ineffective. The district is directing the communes to focus on propagating to people that in areas where summer-autumn rice is not grown, they need to switch to other more effective crops.
Mr. Nguyen Tien Duc - Head of Nghe An Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection said: This summer-autumn crop, the whole province planted over 79,000 hectares of summer-autumn and winter-spring rice, of which about 3,500 hectares of rice are concentrated in Quynh Luu district, Hoang Mai town, Dien Chau, and Yen Thanh.
Producing rice husks easily causes soil degradation, low rice yield, only 1/4 to 1/3 compared to normal rice, and many areas cannot be harvested. In particular, the continuous cropping creates a favorable environment for pests and diseases to survive and damage the rice in the next crop. To overcome this situation, localities need to focus on propaganda and mobilization so that after harvesting spring rice, people need to prepare the land to plant summer-autumn rice to increase economic value per unit area.
For areas with rice residue, after harvest, localities need to instruct farmers to plow the soil and apply lime to destroy pests and weeds to limit the source of harmful organisms existing in the fields, which can spread to the next rice crop.
