Proactively prevent drought for winter crops

The first way people prioritize to fight drought is to use field pumps to pump water from the ditches to water crops.

This winter crop, Mrs. Quang Thi Muon's family, Chieng An village, Thanh An commune ( Dien Bien district) planted nearly 500 square ^{meters of} sweet potatoes. Due to lack of irrigation water, the family's sweet potato area grew slowly and showed signs of withering and not taking root. Facing the risk of losing the planted sweet potato area, Mrs. Muon's family rented a water pump from the left canal of the Nam Rom irrigation system to irrigate the potato field, which was cracking due to drought. Each time they watered, the cost of renting the pump was 150,000 VND.

Not only Mrs. Muon's family, many other households in the basin communes are being affected by dry weather, lack of irrigation water, causing slow growth of crops and risk of having to replant. Ms. Lo Thi Thuy, Pa Phay village, Thanh Yen commune is restless because 3,000m2 of ^jicama is at risk of being lost due to lack of water. According to Ms. Thuy, her family has invested nearly 8 million VND in seeds, fertilizers, and field improvement... If the weather is favorable, after about 4 months, jicama will be harvested, with each 1,000m2 yielding 2.5 - ³ tons of tubers, with prices ranging from 5,000 - 7,000 VND/kg. However, this year, the dry weather has lasted for a long time, and the fields have been drought-stricken for many weeks, making it impossible for the plants to grow. To overcome the drought, in recent days, the family has assigned people to work from midnight at the floating canal to bring water to the fields and had to use an additional water pump from the canal to irrigate enough. Because the fields are quite far from the canal, the family has had difficulty bringing water to the fields. "To help the plants recover, I have to continuously pump water for a few days so that the soil absorbs enough water. To help the plants grow well and produce large tubers, the family also adds fertilizer to increase nutrition" - Ms. Thuy shared more.

There have been rows of potatoes that have been completely lost due to prolonged drought and lack of irrigation water.

This winter crop, Dien Bien district planted over 860 hectares of vegetables, focusing on short-term crops that bring high economic efficiency and are drought-resistant such as corn, sweet potatoes, peanuts... In addition to the initiative of the people in preventing drought for crops, the authorities of the communes in the basin increased coordination with Dien Bien Irrigation Management Company Limited to regulate water.

Mr. Tran Quoc Duyet, Head of Planning - Technical Department, Dien Bien Irrigation Management Company Limited said: According to the recommendations of the communes, the Company has developed a specific plan for regulating water in two canals of the Nam Rom Irrigation System. Every week, the Company releases water on Saturday and Sunday, from Monday to Friday it stops supplying water so that workers can dredge the canals. According to Mr. Duyet, the water release has a specific schedule, the people also need to use water resources effectively, the dry and drought conditions are forecast to continue, so using water economically is very necessary.

Farmers in Thanh Yen commune (Dien Bien district) actively fight drought for jicama plants.

Being proactive in directing, farmers focus on drought prevention for crops, so the area of ​​crops affected by drought in Dien Bien district is gradually increasing. However, according to the recommendations of professional agencies, the weather is quite complicated, drought occurs on a large scale, people need to proactively prevent drought for crops. In the coming time, professional agencies will continue to coordinate with the People's Committees of communes to organize inspections of water regulation, lake systems, dams, irrigation works, arrange conditions to ensure that field pumps can be mobilized to pump water when necessary, in order to minimize losses in productivity and crop output caused by drought.

Source: https://baodienbienphu.com.vn/tin-tuc/kinh-te/219288/chu-dong-chong-han-cho-cay-trong-vu-dong-