A mountainous commune in Nghi Loc district mobilized 5 field pumps to pump water from the lake bed to save rice.

For the past 10 days, at Khe Cai reservoir, Nghi Lam commune, Nghi Loc district, field pumps have been operating at full capacity to draw water from the reservoir to save the rice.

Mr. Vu Dinh Dong, Chairman of Nghi Lam Agricultural Service Cooperative, said: The commune has 3 reservoirs including Khe Cai, Khe Go, and Dong Bu, all of which have dried up. The prolonged heat has caused 100/380 hectares of summer-autumn rice to dry up locally.

Faced with the above difficult situation, Nghi Lam Agricultural Service Cooperative deployed 5 pumps to take water from Khe Cai Lake and pump it in "2 steps" to save the summer-autumn rice crop (including 4 field pumps with a capacity of over 300 m3/h and 1 electric pump with a capacity of 1,200 m3/h) to provide irrigation water for hamlets 6, 7, 11, and 12.

The field pump system that takes water from the lake is operated according to the principle of "watering from high distances first, watering from low distances later", with the coordination of the irrigation department and the hamlets to bring water to the rice fields. The cooperative propagates and encourages people to use water economically.

However, according to Mr. Vu Dinh Dong, if the weather is hot, in the next 5-7 days the reservoir will not have enough water to irrigate the rice, while at this stage the rice is in the tillering stage, which will directly affect the yield.

According to information from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Nghi Loc district, Nghi Loc district currently has 80 reservoirs, of which 8 are managed by the irrigation unit. Most of the remaining reservoirs have exhausted their water sources. If the hot weather continues, in the next 10 days, some areas will have to pump water from the reservoirs to save the rice.