Turn tens of thousands of hectares of barren, rocky land into orchards

Turn tens of thousands of hectares of barren, rocky land into orchards

Living with rocks

With hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural land of farmers in the communes of Nam Cat Tien, Phu Vinh, Phu Lam, Trang Bom..., there is always more rock than land. However, many Kinh, Hoa, Tay, Nung... farmers still find opportunities to change their lives on the rocks, transforming rocky fields into gardens of durian, rambutan, jackfruit, grapefruit, tissue culture banana... with an income of hundreds of millions of dong each year.

Farmers in the rocky land of Nam Cat Tien commune, Dong Nai province are taking care of durian trees after harvest.

Farmer Pham Van Nghia (Nam Cat Tien commune) said that it is not difficult to make enough to eat, just need good health and diligence. If you want to be rich, you have to make the rocks bloom. He said, "In the process of clearing 3 hectares of land, I collected rocks into small piles or filled in low-lying areas that were flooded by rain. By doing so, over the years, the rocks on my land are no longer on the ground."

Deep in the fields of Phu Hoa commune, rocks are everywhere. In many places, farmers even line up rocks in front of their houses, around their fields, or pile them up like straw. Yet, farmers’ fields are always dyed green all year round with durian, banana, corn, mango, grapefruit, tobacco...

Farmers in Chênh A Minh (Phu Hoa commune) said that people who are not diligent, seeing more and more exposed rocks after failed farming seasons, think that the rocks are an obstacle, so they secretly call for vehicles or people to clean up the rocks or transport the rocks to sell. This way, farmers can earn money from selling rocks and do not have to work hard to clean them. However, their land has changed in surface and terrain, so it is not fertile, and growing any crop requires a lot of fertilizer and pesticides, but the yield is not high.

Mr. Le Hong Son (residing in Hamlet 6, Phu Vinh Commune) has found a new way to clear rocks after many days of thinking. Mr. Son's experience is to use machinery to dig 1-2m deep and wide between the rows where the trees are planned to be planted. Then, he uses machinery to "push" all the excess rocks into the hole. He uses the excess humus from the digging process to fertilize the place where the trees are planned to be planted and the base of the trees.

Thus, the plants have more soil to grow, the land surface is not changed (higher, lower than the previous terrain); at the same time, it creates very good underground drainage ditches in the rainy season. With this method, Mr. Son's field no longer sees rocks on the surface and the plants are green and productive, not inferior to the land without rocks, and comply with local regulations on mineral protection.

Fragrant blooming stone

To conquer the rocky land of over 2 hectares to grow tissue culture bananas, earning an income of over 600 million VND/year as it is now, Mr. Phung A Ngoc (Bau Ham commune) and his father have spent countless efforts, which cannot be estimated. Mr. Sau said that after clearing the land, the Chinese, Tay, Nung ethnic people... began to grow rice, tobacco, crops (corn, beans, squash, pumpkin...), traditional bananas (muc, areca, bomb) as food to solve the problem of eating and selling to the market to have money to buy necessities. After a while, farmers began to switch to other crops such as: cashew, coffee, pepper, fruit trees.

According to Mr. Ly A Sau, residing in Nam Cat Tien commune, because the roots of tobacco plants and crops grow on the surface, they easily cling to the cliff to grow and absorb the dew of the sky to develop. Particularly for long-term industrial plants such as coffee, pepper, durian, tissue-cultured bananas, etc., a large space with a lot of humus soil is needed to nourish the plants and fruits for many years. Therefore, his family has to arrange rocks into walls around the garden, gather them into large mounds, or fill in the holes, helping the plants have a lot of soil to stand firmly and not fall down when encountering storms.

“We, the Chinese, always look for land with lots of rocks to settle down. Because according to our concept, rocks are useless and a hindrance when lying on the ground. But when rocks are firmly attached to the ground, they are useful in aerating the soil, keeping the fertile soil layer from being washed away over time,” said farmer Lieu A Sang, Trang Bom commune, Dong Nai province.

Source: https://cand.com.vn/doi-song/bien-hang-chuc-ngan-hecta-dat-can-soi-da-thanh-nhung-vuon-cay-trai-i781344/