Mr. Thong grows plums under mosquito nets so the fruit yield is very high.
Mr. Thong planted more than 260 plum trees in the 8,000m2 plum garden, of which more than 150 trees are 30 to over 40 years old but still bearing fruit, which are more delicious and sweet than younger trees. Previously, his family lived mainly on rice farming combined with gardening, but the income from rice was unstable, and the garden grew many types of trees that did not yield high profits. Since then, the couple has thought about switching to growing trees with higher economic value to suit the conditions of climate change.
"Compared to other trees, this plum variety is very resistant, its root system is very large. Salt water of 1-2 parts per thousand is fine, there have been times when this area was invaded by salt water but the plum trees were able to withstand it all," said Mr. Thong.
Mr. Thong recalls that more than 40 years ago, he brought this green plum variety from Can Tho to Soc Trang to plant among the pink peach plum trees. After a period of planting, he realized that only the green plum trees produced a lot of delicious, sweet, crunchy fruit, and were favored by the market, so he switched to growing this plum variety entirely on an area of more than 8,000 square meters of home garden land. Consumers are assured that the plums are pest-free thanks to the gardener's application of the technique for the entire plum garden "sleeping under a mosquito net".
Mr. Thong has invested more than 300 million VND to build an iron frame and buy nets for the plum trees to "sleep under mosquito nets". Using nets to cover the entire garden is considered the safest and most effective method, helping to reduce the use of pesticides, prevent fruit flies, and protect the fruit from larvae or worms inside the fruit when it is harvested. This helps increase fruit yield.
Plum trees will bear a lot of fruit from the 4th year onwards. The special thing about this type of plum is that the older the tree, the more fruit it produces, bigger, more delicious, and sweeter. Each year, the tree produces 4-5 harvests of fruit, yielding more than 8-10 tons of fruit.
"The special feature of the green sugar plum variety is that it produces fruit during the 6 months of the dry season. Usually, the tree will flower and bear fruit in the 8th lunar month and the fruit will be harvested at the end of the 10th lunar month until the end of the 4th lunar month, ending the plum season," said Mr. Thong.
Therefore, the family grows plums according to a clean process, using only organic fertilizers and biological products, thereby contributing to ensuring the quality of fragrant, naturally sweet plums. Plums are sought after by traders and exported to provinces and cities such as Hanoi , Ho Chi Minh City, etc., even to Cambodia.
Currently, green sugar plums are priced 3-4 times higher than other plum varieties on the market, selling for 80,000-90,000 VND/kg. Thanks to that, Mr. Thong earns an income of over 700 million VND/year. In addition, he also takes cuttings and sells more than 1,000 seedlings to the market each year at a price of about 150,000-200,000 VND/tree.
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