First successful crop of large-scale orange garden on Thanh Mai tea land

Along the Ho Chi Minh trail, deep into the hills, we found the orange and tangerine garden of Mr. Dinh Xuan Thong in Bac Son hamlet, Thanh Mai commune - a pioneer household with the largest area of ​​orange and tangerine growing in the commune.

Currently, his family is cultivating on an area of ​​3.5 hectares and expanding by about 1.5 hectares. Mr. Thong shared: "In the past, I worked hard to make a living from selling tea, raising pigs... but it didn't work out so I switched to being a hired driver. Once when my truck dropped off goods in Quy Hop district, I learned about growing oranges."

Dinh Xuan Thong's family in Bac Son hamlet, Thanh Mai commune is fertilizing the newly planted orange area. Photo: Diep Phuong

At first, Mr. Thong encountered many difficulties in choosing seeds and growing branches, because his knowledge about orange and tangerine trees was still vague. To have healthy, disease-free orange trees, he went to orange gardens in Nghia Dan and Quy Hop districts to carefully select each seedling. Oranges are mainly grown in Doai, Van Du, V1, V2, etc. He also went to green-skin grapefruit gardens in Hoa Binh province to learn about bringing them back to grow on tea land.

“Oranges are easy to grow but are “difficult” and susceptible to pests and diseases. Therefore, care requires both effort and technique from the grower. I use a lot of organic fertilizer to fertilize the plants, minimizing the use of chemicals.”

Investing nearly 1 billion VND, after 3 years of researching, learning and taking care of trees according to technical procedures, Mr. Thong currently owns a garden of 3,000 orange trees, 500 tangerine trees and more than 300 grapefruit trees that are growing well.

To ensure humidity for the plants, Mr. Thong installed a sprinkler system throughout the garden. Photo: Diep Phuong

Since September (lunar calendar) this year, the orange garden has been harvested. Many first-season orange trees yielded more than 100kg of fruit. In total, excluding production costs, Mr. Thong earned a profit of about 250 million VND from the first orange crop. As soon as the oranges are harvested, the tangerine garden will be able to carry on with the crop. It is estimated that the first-season tangerine garden will yield about 3.5 - 4 tons of fruit, ripening on the occasion of this Lunar New Year and the 15th day of the first lunar month.

Mr. Ha Quang Nam - Vice Chairman of Thanh Mai Commune People's Committee said that up to now, tea trees have been the main source of income for the people of the commune. The model of growing fruit trees in general and orange and tangerine trees in particular in the commune is mainly spontaneous. Because oranges are difficult trees, requiring high capital, demanding strict planting and care techniques, the commune currently has no specific policies. However, the commune also encourages households to boldly invest in planting like Mr. Thong's family.

The tangerine trees are laden with ripe fruit. Photo: Diep Phuong

With the initial economic efficiency, Mr. Thong's orange and tangerine growing model has opened up a new direction for local people in converting crop structure, contributing to increasing income on the same cultivated area and developing sustainable production for households.