Old farmer gets rich from Mokara orchid

At the age of over 60, Mr. Nguyen Van Tro (Gia Loc ward, Tay Ninh province) still takes care of his Mokara orchid garden every day. With 20 years of experience growing orchids, he has almost mastered the growing techniques, especially how to treat diseases and propagate orchids. The valuable thing is that he is willing to share this knowledge to support like-minded people.

Mr. Nguyen Van Tro shares his experience in taking care of orchid garden.

Taking us to visit the Mokara orchid garden, Mr. Nguyen Van Tro said that the garden currently grows about 20,000 Mokara orchids with all colors: purple, red, turmeric yellow, apricot yellow, ... to meet customer tastes. The garden is systematically planned with a specialized net system to prevent insects from entering and when spraying pesticides on the plants, it does not affect surrounding households. Regarding water sources, he also invested in an alum filter system and an automatic irrigation system to save irrigation water, save time and care, thereby helping to reduce the cost of seedlings when supplying to farmers.

Recalling the time more than 20 years ago, Mr. Tro shared: “I was born and raised in a farming family. Although I tried my best to do farming and raising animals, my family's life did not improve. Through reading newspapers and listening to the radio, I saw that farmers in Ho Chi Minh City were encouraged to change their crop and livestock structure, in which they introduced the model of growing cut orchids. I was very interested in it.”

During his studies, he was encouraged and enthusiastically guided by a friend on how to do it. During this time, he attended a technical course specializing in orchids at the University of Natural Sciences in Ho Chi Minh City. After completing his studies, at the end of 2005, with the support of the Gia Loc Commune Farmers' Association (now Gia Loc Ward), the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, he boldly invested all his capital to import Mokara orchid varieties from Thailand to plant on a trial basis on ^3,000m2 .

Initially, in addition to the Mokara variety, his garden also grew many other orchid varieties, including wild orchids. The characteristics of wild orchids are high resistance, few diseases, but the economic value is not as good as hybrid orchids. After many years of experimentation, Mr. Tro finally decided to focus on investing in developing Mokara orchids.

This is an orchid variety that prefers the sunny and windy climate of Tay Ninh. The plant is quite easy-going, blooms diligently, has many colors and requires less care than other orchid varieties. With a Mokara seedling, after just one year of planting, it will be propagated to develop 4-5 more seedlings; 1 hectare of land can grow 70,000 to 80,000 plants, after 2 years of planting, it will propagate more than 200,000 seedlings. In the following years, it continues to develop without having to buy seedlings. The output market for seedlings and cut flowers of Mokara orchids is also quite good.

At the age of over 60, Mr. Tro still takes care of his orchid garden every day.

From the initial ^3,000m2 orchid garden, Mr. Tro gradually invested in expanding production. His family's orchid garden brings in a stable income of hundreds of millions of VND/year. At peak times, the garden provides regular and seasonal jobs for more than 10 workers.

What makes many people appreciate him is his willingness to share. Up to now, Mr. Tro cannot remember how many delegations from the Central, local, university students and international guests who share the passion for orchid growing have been welcomed to his orchid garden to visit, learn experiences, share care techniques, propagation methods, disease prevention, etc. Thanks to his understanding of orchids, Mr. Tro has been invited to teach many vocational training classes for rural workers in the province and participate in sharing experiences and orchid growing techniques for groups belonging to the Tay Ninh Provincial Ornamental Plants Association.

“I am a farmer by origin, I have experienced poverty, now I have some knowledge, some capital, and seedlings, so I am willing to share my experience and support those who like to grow orchids. Even when consulting for nearby cases, I will go to the garden to 'show you how to do it', not hiding the profession. The initial investment cost of an orchid garden is very high, and the time to recover the capital is also quite long, so if there is someone to sponsor and provide technical support, it will be more stable and less likely to stumble. Knowledge and experience must be given away to bring value to society,” Mr. Tro confided.

With his experience and contributions to society over the past 20 years, Mr. Nguyen Van Tro has been awarded many certificates of merit by the Vietnam Ornamental Plants Association, the Provincial People's Committee, the Provincial Farmers' Association and certificates of merit from local levels and sectors. At the 1st Patriotic Emulation Congress of Tay Ninh province (2025-2030), he was honored to receive a certificate of merit from the Prime Minister./.

Phuong Thuy

Source: https://baolongan.vn/lao-nong-lam-giau-tu-cay-lan-mokara-a205522.html