The pioneer brought peony grapes from Korea to grow in the West

Passionate about farming, Mr. Nguyen Ba Duy (57 years old, living in Can Tho city) boldly spent billions to set up a farm to import peony grape varieties from Korea to grow.

Boldly change careers

Mr. Nguyen Ba Duy's peony grape farm is more than 3,000m2 wide ^, located in Long Hoa Ward, Binh Thuy District ( Can Tho City), named Nhat Tam. This place invests in modern equipment from irrigation systems, convection fans to limit humidity, reduce pathogens in the air. All are controlled via an application installed on the phone, so it requires little care.

The first peony vineyard of more than 3,000 square meters in the West

Mr. Duy said that he used to work in the car business in Ho Chi Minh City. When the Covid-19 epidemic broke out, the car market was sluggish, so he decided to return to his hometown Can Tho to renovate abandoned land and buy a garden with star apples to turn to farming.

Initially, he intended to grow common fruit trees such as jackfruit, durian... However, after researching, he decided to destroy the star apple garden and import 100 peony grape seedlings from Korea for experimental planting.

In the first months of planting, due to lack of experience and technical limitations, the seedlings died en masse. Undaunted, Mr. Duy boldly went to a farm in Korea to learn from experience. After that, he spent billions of dong to invest in a convection cooling system to limit pathogens and humidity in the air. Thanks to that, the plants took root and grew well.

Mr. Duy checks the bunches of ripe grapes.

Confident in domesticating the grapevine, Mr. Duy continued to import 500 more grapevines, including 360 peony grapevines, the rest are black summer grapes, ruby ​​grapes... Currently, all are bearing fruit.

"To grow grapes in the Southwest region, it is necessary to have a greenhouse system to limit pathogens, invest in a convection fan system to limit humidity and leaf diseases. In addition, I prepared the soil for more than a year, bought more than 3,000m3 ^of sand for the garden, then hired a machine to till the soil so that the sand and soil layers mixed together, then dried the soil before planting. From the time of preparation until now, the tree has produced its first fruit, almost 2 years", Mr. Duy said.

High economic value but large investment

According to Mr. Duy, peony grapes have high disease resistance, but one must understand the characteristics and techniques to make the tree bear fruit. Peony grapes grown in Korea have winter, the tree concentrates nutrients at the base, the leaves on the top are bare, so it is easier to make fruit. In the Southwest, because there are only two seasons of sun and rain, intervention is needed to make the tree bear fruit. In return, it is possible to make the tree bear fruit in two seasons, while in Korea it is only one.

"The process of fruiting and pruning is very difficult. You have to observe the flowers that have just bloomed and then use biological products imported from abroad to treat them to remove the seeds. After that, continue to treat them to stretch the flower clusters, avoid pathogens, fruit rot and increase the size of the fruit... After fruiting, you have to prune 3 times to make the grape bunches of even quality and beautiful," Mr. Duy revealed.

According to Mr. Duy, peony grapes have a mango and milk flavor; high nutritional value; when frozen, they can be preserved for 6 months without the fruit falling off the stem.

Currently, his peony grape trees are 15 months old and are producing their first crop of fruit, yielding about 2 tons. On average, each bunch of grapes weighs from 500 to 700 grams, selling for 400,000 VND/kg. Mr. Duy has just opened his garden to welcome tourists and sells fruit.

The peony grape variety was successfully grown by Mr. Duy and bears abundant fruit.

Regarding the future direction, Mr. Duy said he will expand the area of ​​vineyards, propagate large quantities to sell to the market, transfer techniques, and guarantee output for local people if they want to switch to growing this grape variety.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Phuong Lan, Deputy Head of the Binh Thuy District Agricultural Extension Station, commented that Mr. Duy's peony grape growing model is completely new, invested with a modern system. Mr. Duy is also a pioneer in bringing expensive Korean grape varieties to grow in the Southwest region. The new garden has just opened on the occasion of the holidays to welcome visitors and received very positive feedback. However, this model requires a lot of investment capital to build a greenhouse system.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/nguoi-tien-phong-dua-nho-mau-don-tu-han-quoc-ve-trong-o-mien-tay-185230505095202498.htm