These days, Mr. Nguyen Van Nam's star apple garden (My Khanh commune, Can Tho city) is starting the harvest season, with a selling price of 38,000 - 40,000 VND/kg. According to this gardener, this year, the family has worked early to take advantage of the early harvest price. But before we could be happy because star apple prices were good, the yield was affected.
"This year, my family plans to harvest early to get high prices, so we can avoid the right rain. My whole garden is about 0.5 hectares, the rate of fruit cracking is from 15 - 20%. All cracks are considered abandoned because traders do not buy them," Mr. Nam shared.
At Xom Dong 2 Agricultural Cooperative (Thoi An Hoi commune, Can Tho city), a similar situation is occurring.
Mr. Tran Van Phuong - Director of Xom Dong 2 Agricultural Cooperative - said that currently, some of the people's gardens have fallen and flooded due to storms and high tides but not significantly. However, the situation of star apple cracking before harvest is greatly affecting farmers.
"Currently, there are over 20 households working early with an area of over 10 hectares of pink avocado and purple star apple. Due to heavy rain, the remaining water absorbed caused the star apple to crack before harvest. We cannot harvest early, because we have to wait for the road level. It is estimated that the cracking of fruit affects about 20% of the total harvest, said Mr. Phuong.
According to Mr. Phuong, at the beginning of this crop, the cooperative is preparing an export shipment of nearly 830 kg. Although the price of star apple purchased at the cooperative's garden is at a fairly good level, 5,000 VND/kg higher than at the same time last year, it has not been able to compensate for the loss of fruit due to cracks.
In fact, although the price is higher, it is still impossible to compensate for the amount of fruit damaged by the weather. This will of course affect the profits of farmers. This year, the cooperative is expected to harvest about 300 tons of various star apples. We just hope that through this rain, the next harvests will not be affected, Mr. Phuong expressed.
According to the Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection (Department of Agriculture and Environment of Can Tho City), there are currently nearly 5,000 hectares of fruit trees in the area that have been flooded due to the impact of high tides and storms in recent days.
To prevent and avoid damage to crops in the complicated developments of weather, rain, floods and high tides, the city's Department of Agriculture recommends that farmers proactively update, closely monitor weather forecast information, hydrological information, natural disaster warnings and follow recommendations to proactively care for and protect crops.
For fruit trees, farmers need to visit their gardens regularly and be vigilant against flooding. At the same time, proactively tie up trees at risk of falling, harvest ripe fruits, avoid falling; pay attention to checking and detecting flooded trees with symptoms of yellow leaf, rotten roots, use pesticides to water the roots and increase the plant's resistance to adverse factors.
