Grow on sand, water the plant
Amidst the harsh sunshine in late February, the winds of the sea are blowing in, the watermelon fields on the sandy soil in the coastal buffer zone of Mo O hamlet, Trung Binh commune (Tran De district, Soc Trang province) are still lush green, producing large, round, and plump fruits.
Despite harsh conditions, farmers here have turned the windy and sandy barren land into fruit-laden melon gardens, bringing a stable source of income and a prosperous life.
While watering 2 cucumber hectares, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hieu - a long-time cucumber grower in Trung Binh commune - shared that her family has been involved in coastal cucumber growing for decades. Each year, she grows 3 melon crops or 2 melon crops interspersed with 1 peanut crop. Although grown on sandy soil, thanks to experience and proper investment, melons are still lush, giving high productivity and delicious quality.
To proactively source fresh water, Ms. Hieu and many melon growers in Mo O have taken a clean water pipeline from their home to the fields to water the melons. In addition, people have also built ponds to store water combined with drop- drop irrigation, helping melons grow green even in the dry season.
"Growing melons on coastal sand will be more labor-intensive and costly than in other areas. Each crop costs an average of 2 million VND for tap water. In addition, due to being close to the sea, the trees are easily affected by frost or strong winds," Ms. Hieu added.
According to Ms. Hieu, although the investment cost is higher, in return, Mo O watermelon is always favored by the market for its superior quality. Cucumbers here always have a higher selling price than other places, the price is always maintained at 6,500 - 9,000 VND/kg, contributing to ensuring income for melon growers.
"The melon fields will be harvested in about 5 days, with an estimated output of 8-10 tons. The current purchase price for traders is 8,500 VND/kg. It is expected that after deducting costs, there will be a profit of about 30 million VND," Ms. Hieu calculated.
Not far away, Ms. Nguyen Thi Ly and her husband have also grown melons on sand for nearly 20 years. Ms. Ly shared: The family has just harvested 2 hectares of melons, with an output of 7.5 tons, and a profit of about 25 million VND after 2 months of planting and caring.
Ms. Ly added that the land here is sandy, the ratio of sand is more than the land, so every year she has to buy more sand to build a foundation for the melon beds so that the plants are not flooded during the rainy season. " Then use clean water and fertilizer made from shrimp fish by-products. Then plant on sand, perhaps that is why the quality and productivity of melons are always very high. On average, each fruit is 4-6kg, the rest is about 2kg/fruit," said Ms. Ly.
The secret from dust
According to Mr. Pham Quoc Thai - a long-time melon grower in Trung Binh commune - an important factor contributing to the special quality of Mo O watermelon is the unique characteristics of this region's land. "Same as a melon variety, but when grown in the sandy soil of Mo O, melons produce very high productivity, large fruit, delicious quality, sweet, beautiful plum, shiny green color, shiny red intestines and especially can be kept for a long time without worrying about damage," Mr. Thai affirmed.
Not only that, Mo O people also apply advanced farming techniques such as covering tarpaulins on melon growing beds and spreading nets underground so that melons do not touch the soil, ensuring hygiene and quality.
"Thanks to those advantages, melons are always popular in many places. Currently, not only traders in Can Tho come to buy but also in Bac Lieu, Tra Vinh, and Vinh Long provinces. Traders buy picked melons wherever they are harvested," said Mr. Thai.
In recent years, Mo O people have also switched to production in the direction of biosafety quality, helping to increase productivity, improve melon quality and reduce investment costs.
Mr. Trieu Van Ut - a melon grower - excitedly said: "Through the support of the locality, the enterprise has signed an output purchase contract, with the purchase price higher than the melon of the same type without organic growing by 2,000 - 3,000 VND/kg. Thanks to that, income is stable, no need to worry about unstable markets".
