Growing dragon fruit in coastal areas still brings high income

(Baonghean) - With the desire to find suitable crops for poor sandy soil, after a period of research and learning from experience, Ms. Le Thi Lac in Hamlet 3, Quynh Thuan Commune (Quynh Luu) decided to choose dragon fruit for experimental planting. Initial results show that this is a promising crop for coastal sandy soil.

Visiting the dragon fruit growing model of Ms. Le Thi Lac's family, we were surprised and admired her will to get rich, because a vast dragon fruit garden was in the harvest period, the fruits were ripe and red. While harvesting dragon fruit, Ms. Lac happily said: "This year's dragon fruit season is good, with many fruits, we have to mobilize more workers to harvest in order to sell to traders in time, as soon as the harvest is finished, traders buy everything, there is nothing left over during the day". To achieve this result is thanks to the determination and efforts in investing in care. She said, through reading books and newspapers, the experience of those who went before, it is said that dragon fruit is a type of tree that can be grown in any land, from arid land to sandy land, alum land... therefore, her family boldly brought dragon fruit varieties to plant. With 3 hectares of land, she devoted 2 hectares to growing dragon fruit trees. Currently, her family's dragon fruit garden is in the harvest season, with an average yield of 6-7 tons/year. With a market price of 15-17 thousand VND/kg, after deducting expenses, her family earns 60-70 million VND in profit each year. Ms. Lac shared: "Growing dragon fruit requires a large investment, so the first crop's income is not high, but in the second year, the yield is 3 times higher, the income is higher and the profit starts to come in."

Harvesting dragon fruit in Ms. Le Thi Lac's garden.

Currently, in Ms. Lac's family's dragon fruit garden, there are 1,200 dragon fruit trees planted at equal density. The dragon fruit roots are supported by cement concrete pillars, each pillar is 2m high, with a side of 12-15cm, the pillars are buried 0.5 - 0.6m deep and the mound is made. Ms. Lac said that through the time of planting and caring, it has been shown that dragon fruit is a drought-resistant plant, adapts well to sandy soil, has few pests and diseases, does not require much care, only needs to cover with straw to keep moist and add manure for the plant to grow well. Dragon fruit grown in this coastal saline sandy soil needs more careful care, needs more phosphate fertilizer than those grown in hilly and other lands. Thanks to the hard work of researching and learning care experience, this second harvest has a higher yield than the first. In the first crop, each dragon fruit pillar only yielded an average of 8kg of fruit, but in the second crop, many pillars yielded over 17kg of fruit. In addition to developing the family's economy, she also created jobs for a number of local workers. Currently, there are always 8-10 workers working in the dragon fruit garden. Ms. Pham Thi Mang, a worker in Ms. Lac's dragon fruit garden, said: This is the largest dragon fruit garden in Quynh Luu that I have seen. It has been harvested for a month but the trees are still very fruitful. As soon as they are harvested, customers buy them all.

In addition to selling fruit, Ms. Lac is researching and learning to grow quality red-fleshed dragon fruit to sell to households in need to increase income from this model.

Viet Hung

(Quynh Luu Radio)