Nghe An farmers stop watering, cut roots to prevent peach blossoms from blooming early

Peach growers in Nghia Mai commune (Nghia Dan) are pruning branches in the hope of earning income just in time for Tet. Photo: Minh Thai

Nghia Dan, Tan Ky and Thai Hoa districts are the localities with the largest peach growing areas in the mountainous districts of Nghe An. The total peach growing area in these districts is about 200 hectares. This is the source of peach trees for Tet for neighboring districts and Vinh city. This year, due to the prolonged hot weather in October and November 2018, along with the extreme and constantly changing climate, many peach areas have bloomed.

Many trees are in full bloom even though it's not Tet yet. Photo: Minh Thai

The family of Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tuan in Hamlet 20, Nghia Thuan Commune, Thai Hoa Town is one of the households with many years of experience in growing peach trees. Up to now, his family has nearly 200 peach trees. In previous years, his family earned nearly 50 million VND from selling peach trees and branches for Tet. This year, the peach blossoms bloomed early, making him very worried.

In Nghia Mai commune, Nghia Dan district, there are some families growing peach trees for Tet with the quantity of 30 - 100 trees. However, at this time, most of the peach gardens are in full bloom, in some households, the peach trees are in full bloom up to 80 - 90%. Many peach garden owners in Nghia Mai are anxious, worried, hoping for the cold weather to last longer to "slow down". However, with a large number of peach trees blooming before Tet, the fear of losing harvest for peach growers is present.

Many peach growers said that now the only way left is to not water and cut down the roots to slow down the blooming rate. However, this method only partially limits the effect. If the weather is too cold, it is still possible to intervene to stimulate the peach blossoms to bloom, but with warm weather like this, there is no effective way to slow down the blooming. If next week there is a severe cold spell and the peach blossoms stop blooming, then maybe we will have a harvest. If it continues like this, beautiful peach blossoms will be very rare this Tet.

As in the lowlands, peach growers in mountainous districts such as Ky Son, Tuong Duong, and Que Phong are also having a "headache" because of the early blooming of peach trees, especially in areas of old peach trees.

Only a few areas of young peach trees that have not yet bloomed are a source of hope for peach growers in mountainous districts this year. Photo: Ho Phuong

Mr. Lau Chi Sanh in Muong Long 1 village, Muong Long commune said that his family has more than 1 hectare of peach trees planted both in the garden and on the fields. At this time in previous years, thanks to the beautiful peach trees, traders started to come and "hunt" and place deposits. However, recently, a few people came to see the peach trees and saw that they had bloomed, so they shook their heads and left. There were only a few trees that had not bloomed yet, so they were not very interested. Not only his family, but also some peach trees of other families had bloomed. The area of ​​peach trees that bloomed early fell on old peach trees, which were valuable because they were big and had a lot of moss.

“Early peach blossoming still happens frequently in mountainous districts, especially in rock peach areas because they do not take care of the trees and there is no specific method to guide the peach trees to bloom at the right time. In previous years, peach blossoms also bloomed early and late, but not as common as this year. With this situation, crop failure is obvious,” an experienced peach grower shared.