Deploying many solutions to combat drought for tea

(Baonghean.vn) - To cope with this year's hot season, tea growers in Thanh Chuong district (Nghe An) are having many solutions to effectively fight drought.

Before 2014, the whole district had 4,500 hectares of land.¾tea area of ​​the whole province. In the historic drought of 2015, the amount of tea died over 1,000 hectares. This is a huge loss because from planting to harvesting takes at least 3 years and to plant one hectare of tea requires an investment of over 40 million VND.

Thanh Thuy tea area people install sprinkler irrigation system

Identifying tea as a key economic crop, Thanh Chuong district has focused on directing and having many policies and mechanisms to help people replant and plant new areas.

The district has mobilized over 100 billion VND to invest in tea trees from loan programs for building farms and clean water from the district's Social Policy Bank and the Agricultural Bank. Along with that, the agricultural extension station has organized over 50 training sessions for over 4,000 people in the tea growing area on tea growing and care techniques.

Thanks to that, in the last months of 2015 and early 2016, the whole district has restored 200 hectares and newly planted 350 hectares, and is preparing over 30 million seedlings to plant about 200 hectares in the next autumn crop. In addition to the communes specializing in tea, currently, people in the resettlement communes of Ban Ve Hydropower Plant such as Thanh Son and Ngoc Lam have also actively grown tea, considering this a sustainable solution to hunger eradication and poverty reduction.

Mr. Bui Ngoc Toan in Nam Son Hamlet, Thanh Mai Commune watered his tea using a combination of manual and automatic watering systems.

In addition to restoration, new planting, and learning from previous years, entering this year's hot season, tea growers are focusing on drought prevention. Households near streams and dams are focusing on storing water, purchasing pumps and equipment for irrigation.

According to statistics, currently 63% of households have pumps of all kinds. Many households in Thanh Mai commune invest from 20 to 150 million VND to buy high-capacity water pumps and automatic irrigation systems.

Officers of the District Agricultural Extension Station guide people in resettlement areas to weed tea.

Mr. Bui Ngoc Toan's family in Nam Son hamlet, Thanh Mai invested 200 million VND to install an irrigation system. Thanks to this system, during the historic drought in 2015, his 3 hectares of tea were always green. The results of Mr. Toan's tea protection and irrigation system are a vivid visual for people to learn.

In areas without natural water sources, many households invest in building water tanks of over 100 m2 at the highest point in the tea garden to store rainwater. A typical example is the household of Mr. Dinh Xuan Thong in Xom Da Bia, Ngoc Lam Tea Enterprise.

Many tea growers believe that hand-picking tea will protect the tea leaves during the hot season.

Along with digging ponds, dams, building tanks, and purchasing water pumps, people in the tea growing areas actively take care of, fertilize, weed, and mulch the tea plants with green manure and fresh leaves to retain moisture.

In addition, people with experience in drought prevention should not harvest by machine in the first spring tea crop but should harvest by hand. Although the yield is not high, the leaves are kept intact. Harvesting tea by machine due to high temperature and gasoline will affect the growth of tea plants, if exposed to hot sun, the tea will die.

Tran Dinh Ha

Thanh Chuong Radio Station