Earn tens of millions of dong per month thanks to growing bamboo for bamboo shoots

At the peak of the bamboo shoot season, each day, the 400-bush bamboo garden of Mrs. Bui Thi Phuong's family (residing in Vam Co commune, Tay Ninh province) harvests up to 100-120kg of bamboo. With an average selling price of about 20,000 VND/kg, the bamboo garden brings her family a good income, gradually getting rich on their homeland.

Bamboo shoots have a thin skin, sweet taste, and are popular in the market.

More than 2 years ago, Mrs. Bui Thi Phuong's family decided to cut down more than 6,000 square meters of land growing dragon fruit that was bearing fruit to switch to growing bamboo. "At that time, the price of dragon fruit kept falling, the investment cost was high, if we continued to maintain the garden, we would definitely lose money. Many households returned to rice, but my family still wanted to switch crops again. After researching, I saw that the model of growing bamboo for shoots had a lot of potential, so I decided to order seedlings from the old Tay Ninh province garden with the price of 40,000 VND/seedling to plant" - Mrs. Phuong said.

The dragon fruit beds were converted by her family to grow bamboo with a distance of 3m between plants and 6m between rows. Although she had no experience growing bamboo for shoots, through researching techniques on the Internet and instructions from the nursery that provided the seeds, her family took care of the bamboo bushes to grow well.

“Compared to other crops, growing bamboo is not difficult. This is a plant with strong vitality. If planted properly and cared for well, it will only take about 1 year for the bamboo shoots to stabilize and start producing more in the second year onwards. The bamboo shoots can be harvested after about 1 week of growing,” said Ms. Phuong.

Currently, every day, from 400 bamboo bushes, Ms. Phuong's family harvests 50-60kg of bamboo shoots, and during peak seasons they can harvest 100-120kg. Although the main output is wholesale to traders at the markets, with an average price of 20,000 VND/kg of bamboo shoots, after deducting expenses, Ms. Phuong's family still has an income of 10-20 million VND/month.

According to Ms. Phuong, growing bamboo for shoots is relatively easy, but to have high productivity, growers need to master techniques such as fertilizing with organic fertilizers periodically every year, pruning branches, and especially applying techniques to leave mother plants.

“Bamboo trees after 1 year of producing shoots will start to lose productivity and become old. Therefore, they must be replaced with new trees. Each bamboo bush only needs to have 3-5 mother trees and keep the distance between the mother trees so that the bamboo shoots can grow evenly. One thing to note when growing bamboo for shoots is to maintain soil moisture, water regularly during the dry season and give the bamboo trees time to rest to nourish the mother trees,” said Ms. Phuong.

Bamboo is quite tall, from 7-8m and has no thorns, large, smooth leaves, beautiful green color. Bamboo shoots often grow in clusters but farther from the mother tree than other types of bamboo, weigh from 1-2kg/bud, have a thin shell and taste sweet. This is also a type of bamboo shoot favored by the market.

Bamboo shoots are produced all year round and are most abundant during the rainy season. However, Ms. Phuong's family can process the bamboo to produce high-yield bamboo shoots in the off-season. Ms. Phuong's family also plans to raise bamboo rats to take advantage of bamboo shoots and waste bamboo when pruning the garden to increase economic efficiency./.

Steadfast - Hung Anh

Source: https://baolongan.vn/thu-nhap-hang-chuc-trieu-dong-moi-thang-nho-trong-tre-dien-truc-lay-mang-a202566.html