Efforts to protect crops during the hot season

(Baonghean.vn) - Hot weather not only threatens the growth of crops but also creates conditions for pests to develop. To protect crops from the heat in harsh weather, farmers in the province have come up with many solutions, especially in areas specializing in growing vegetables, industrial tea, and summer-autumn rice.

In the coastal communes of Quynh Luu, which is considered the largest vegetable granary of the district, in the extreme heat, farmers are focusing on watering, caring for and preventing pests. While watering her family's 3 sao of vegetables, Ms. Ho Thi Chau, sweating profusely, said: "Due to the hot weather, I have to get up earlier than usual to water my vegetable garden. If I water when the sun is high, the vegetables will get burned. Currently, 2 sao of green onions, lettuce, and tomatoes are growing well and are ready to be harvested."

Quynh Luong farmer watering green onions. Photo: Viet Hung

In 2015, the entire Quynh Luong commune cultivated over 800 hectares of vegetable land. Currently, people are taking care of about 80 hectares of green onions and some other vegetables. To prevent drought for vegetables in hot weather, more than 1,000 vegetable growing households in Quynh Luong commune have used water from wells drilled right in the fields to spray water on vegetables. Most people have pumps and automatic irrigation systems.

Quynh Luong farmers invest in wells to proactively irrigate vegetables. - photo by Viet Hung

Currently, in specialized color production areas such as Quynh Luong, Quynh Minh, Quynh Bang, Tan Son communes, farmers are trying their best to irrigate vegetables to prevent drought. Some households have proactively switched to growing new varieties to replace traditional color crops such as chili, bitter melon, and melon. In some areas with special conditions that make it impossible to change the variety structure, people have invested in making means to protect against rain and sun such as covering the fields with straw, making net covers, and regularly maintaining water in the trenches between the rows to cool the soil.

In Anh Son, the drought situation is becoming more complicated. For many days now, the heat has seriously affected agricultural production and people's lives. Among them, industrial tea trees are significantly affected. Hung Son - one of the key communes for industrial tea growing in Anh Son district.

The entire Hung Son commune (Anh Son) currently has 533 hectares of industrial tea plantation, of which 350 hectares are commercial tea and the rest are basic tea plantation. In order to help tea growers effectively combat drought, in 2010 Hung Son commune built 53 large and small dams to create moisture for tea plants and serve in combating drought in the dry season. Along with that, Hung Son continues to apply the industrial irrigation model to irrigate tea plants in the dry season. This is a modern irrigation technique, saving water, but with high economic efficiency, especially effective in the dry season. However, because the cost of installing an irrigation system for tea plants is still quite high, few families dare to invest in using it.

Irrigation system to keep tea moist in Thanh Thuy - Thanh Chuong - photo by Chau Lan.

Not only in Hung Son, in Thanh Thuy - Thanh Chuong, some smart households have invested in a sprinkler irrigation system for tea, ensuring that the tea does not die in the extremely hot weather, while at the same time the tea yield has increased by one and a half times compared to households that did not invest.

In vegetable growing areas such as Nam Xuan, Nam Anh - Nam Dan, and ornamental plant craft villages such as Nghi Kim, Nghi An - Vinh City, people are trying to find water sources to irrigate their crops.

For many areas of summer-autumn rice that have just been planted, people go to the fields every day to regulate water properly to ensure the growth of seedlings and rice. Ms. Pham Thi Nhan (Hamlet 2 Nam Loc - Nam Dan) shared: "Our family has an area of ​​over 5 sao in Sau Rau field. Last week, the commune pumped water in to prepare for production, thanks to that, family members are actively removing the banks to bring water into the fields, ensuring production."

Although farmers have some solutions to protect their assets and crops, state investment in this field is still limited. Most of the area of ​​crops that are economically effective for farmers such as rubber, tea, sugarcane, peanuts, etc. are not guaranteed irrigation and farmers need better support mechanisms to invest in irrigation systems for their crops.

Viet Hung - Huyen Trang