Thanh Chuong: Proactively preventing drought for tea

(Baonghean.vn) - To cope with this year's hot season, tea growers in Thanh Chuong district are coming up with many effective solutions to combat drought.

In recent days, although there have been occasional rains in the area, they are hot thunderstorms, and after the rain the weather is hot, so Mr. Nguyen Van Binh's family in Hamlet 12, Thanh Huong Commune (Thanh Chuong) still regularly uses a sprinkler system to water the tea hills. He said that thanks to being near a large stream and being irrigated all year round, his family's 2-hectare tea garden is always green.

Irrigation system for tea of ​​Mr. Nguyen Van Binh in Ta Xieng village, Ngoc Lam commune (Thanh Chuong). Photo: Dinh Ha

Like Mr. Binh, Mr. Bui Ngoc Toan in Nam Son hamlet, Thanh Mai commune also has a water source from the dam around his garden, so he invested 200 million VND to install a sprinkler system. Thanks to this system, during the historic drought in 2015 and the hot season in 2016, his 3 hectares of tea were always green and lush. As a result, his tea protection and irrigation pumping system have been learned by many people, and now over 60% of tea-growing households in the area have pumps of all kinds.

In addition to digging ponds, dams, building tanks, buying pumps... in places where there is no available water source, the drought-fighting measures of tea growers are to actively care for, fertilize, weed and cover the tea roots with fresh leaves and straw to retain moisture.

Thanh Chuong people cover the tea roots with fresh leaves and straw to keep them moist. Photo: Dinh Ha

Mr. Hoang Van Tung in Ta Xieng village, Ngoc Lam commune said that all kinds of straw, mulch from rice, corn, beans, and peanuts after harvest are used to cover the roots of tea plants, which not only cleans the house and garden but also effectively prevents drought for tea. This year, tea prices are high, so households in the area are focusing on preventing drought for tea.

To prevent drought for tea, people's experience is that they should not harvest by machine but only by hand. Because picking tea by machine will cut off all the leaves on the surface, the plant is damaged, causing "water shock" and gasoline spills, reducing the ability to grow, if exposed to hot sun, the tea will die.

In addition to the hot weather, there is also a subjective reason: to facilitate harvesting by machine, tea growers have cut down all the shade trees in the tea garden, thoroughly exploiting the land without keeping vegetation on the hilltop to retain moisture as tea farms have done before.

Up to now, over 4,500 hectares of Thanh Chuong tea are being well protected. Photo: Dinh Ha

Tea takes about 3 years from planting to harvest, so protecting tea from drought is a key task for over 10,000 households in Thanh Chuong district. Learning from previous years, this year, the district has organized many training courses for people to exchange and share experiences in caring for and preventing drought for tea.

According to Mr. Tran Phi Hung - Head of the District Agriculture Department, along with watering, mulching, hand-picking tea, intensive care..., people must interplant legume-rooted trees and absorb water such as acacia, cassia, troi, and tung oil to create shade, restore green carpets on the hilltop to keep the entire tea hill moist. Thanks to the synchronous and effective implementation of measures, up to now, over 4,500 hectares of Thanh Chuong tea are being well protected.

Tran Dinh Ha