Farmers advised to follow the summer crop sowing schedule

Farmers in Thanh My commune, Chau Thanh district harvest winter-spring rice 2023 - 2024.

To ensure the safety of the 2024 summer-autumn rice crop and limit damage caused by saltwater intrusion, early-season drought, and harmful pests and diseases, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Tra Vinh province has issued a calendar for sowing the 2024 summer-autumn rice crop and recommended that farmers comply.

Accordingly, in the summer-autumn crop of 2024, the province plans to sow 68,000 hectares, concentrated in 2 main phases. Phase 1 from April 2 to 25, planting in localities with sufficient fresh water for rice production such as Cang Long district, some communes of Cau Ke, Tieu Can, Chau Thanh districts, on a total area of 11,462 hectares. Phase 2 from May 5 to 20, planting in Cau Ngang, Tra Cu, Duyen Hai districts, Duyen Hai town, Tra Vinh city and completely planting in the remaining areas of Tieu Can, Chau Thanh, Cau Ke districts.

The provincial agricultural sector encourages farmers to use new varieties, certified varieties, varieties with suitable growing time for each locality; rice varieties with high yield and quality suitable for market requirements, strong plants, anti-lodging, good resistance to pests, drought and salinity such as OM18, OM4900, OM5451, Dai Thom 8, ST5, ST24, ST25...

The industry noted that localities should arrange groups of varieties with the same growing period to facilitate the provision and use of water for irrigation and effective large-scale pest management; propagate and mobilize farmers to apply measures of sowing in rows, sowing sparsely, and using less than 100kg/ha of seeds. At the same time, remove obstacles such as water hyacinth, weeds, etc. on canals to clear the flow, dredge canal axes, repair culverts, and regulate water for production.

Farmers also need to perform good field sanitation at least 2 weeks before sowing, use Trichoderma fungi or biological products to decompose straw to limit organic poisoning and cut off disease sources; apply sustainable rice cultivation processes such as "1 must, 5 reductions", alternating flooding and drying according to SRP standards or certified good agricultural practices.

Tra Vinh Irrigation Works Management and Exploitation One Member Co., Ltd. based on the sowing schedule has a plan to coordinate with localities in operating irrigation sluices to regulate water reasonably to serve well the land preparation and sowing.

In the 2023 - 2024 winter-spring rice crop, Tra Vinh farmers planted nearly 62,000 hectares and have so far harvested nearly 70% of the planted area, with an average yield of 6.76 tons/ha, 0.04 tons/ha higher than the same period last year.

Although salinity intrusion into the province occurred early (December 2023), at a level higher than the average of many years, thanks to the locality's proactive implementation of synchronous solutions right from the beginning of the dry season, so far, the amount of water in the fields is still basically sufficient for the winter-spring rice crop. Most of the rice fields planted according to the production plan of the provincial agricultural sector have "avoided" drought and salinity, with average yields higher than the same period last year.

News and photos: THANH HOA

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