A very young farmer, attached to his hometown Di Linh and coffee trees, is looking for a new direction, which is intercropping fruit trees in his coffee garden with a specialty tree: Bo Hong star apple.
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| Mr. Nguyen Van Khang in the star apple garden is harvesting |
• GROWING STAR STAR WITH COFFEE
Mr. Nguyen Van Khang, Village 8, Dinh Trang Hoa Commune, Di Linh District, is harvesting ripe star apples. This is a fruit tree that he intercropped with his family's coffee plantation. Mr. Nguyen Van Khang shared that his family is a farmer and has been familiar with coffee trees for decades. However, growing coffee trees alone also has many risks such as fluctuating coffee prices, growing coffee trees alone also reduces the growth of the trees, and there are no trees to shade the sun, creating diffused light for the coffee garden to grow.
Therefore, since 2017, Mr. Khang has tried planting many types of fruit trees in the coffee garden such as pomegranate and macadamia. However, he found that the results were not as expected. In 2021, with the encouragement and commitment of his partner to purchase products, Mr. Khang decided to try planting star apple in the coffee garden. He shared: "Star apple is not a strange tree to Di Linh farmers, many families still grow star apple in the garden as a fruit tree. However, to bring in economic income, I have to choose a type of star apple with high value". Therefore, he decided to try planting Bo Hong star apple. According to Mr. Nguyen Van Khang, Bo Hong star apple has the characteristics of thick flesh, little latex, large fruit, thin skin, on average from three to four fruits per kg. When ripe, the fruit's skin is shiny pink, has a sweet taste, so it is favored by the market. Bo Hong milk fruit is also accepted by some export markets, which is also the motivation for young farmers to be determined to grow it successfully.
In 2021, Mr. Khang planted 100 star apple trees in the coffee garden. Seeing that the trees were growing well, in 2022, he planted 100 more trees. By the end of 2024, the star apple garden began to bear fruit and in the early days of the 2025 dry season, 100 3-year-old star apple trees gave the first official harvest. Mr. Khang said that in the Southern region, the Bo Hong star apple fruit has a peak harvest time from around the 10th lunar month to the Lunar New Year, while in Di Linh, the fruit has a later harvest time, from before the Lunar New Year to the end of the 2nd lunar month. This is also an advantage due to the off-season, reducing seasonal competition. He shared: “The Bo Hong milk fruit tree is naturally very healthy, has few pests and diseases, and the investment cost for seeds and fertilizers is quite low. Just pay attention to having a beautiful appearance and preventing sucking insects. As soon as the fruit is as big as a big toe, I wrap the fruit in foam, which helps the fruit skin to be beautiful, and also avoids bruising when harvesting and transporting to customers.”
• ORGANIC FARMING
Mr. Nguyen Van Khang said that the milk fruit garden intercropped with his family's 2 hectares of coffee has brought many positive results. Firstly, coffee trees are plants that love reflected light, the high milk fruit canopy provides shade and wind protection for the coffee, so the coffee yield is stable. In return, the milk fruit tree has coffee trees covering the base, so it does not need to be composted like the milk fruit trees grown in the delta provinces, helping farmers reduce many costs. Mr. Khang assessed that the Bo Hong milk fruit tree is healthy, mainly needing balanced fertilizer. In particular, both the coffee tree and the milk fruit tree are cared for organically, using a large amount of microbial fertilizer, especially prioritizing the use of vermicompost - a type of fertilizer that is easy to digest and absorb for plants. At the same time, due to intercropping, there is little grass on the ground, so Mr. Khang absolutely does not use herbicides. When the grass grows tall, he uses a machine to cut it close to the roots, always leaving a layer of low grass on the ground to balance the ecology of the plants as well as beneficial symbiotic microorganisms in the soil. This is also the farming process he was transferred from agricultural engineer Huynh Le Minh Thu.
Ms. Minh Thu is quite familiar with Lam Dong farmers, who specializes in developing specialty vegetables and fruits, consulting, providing technical guidance as well as purchasing output products for farmers. Ms. Thu is also the one who guided Mr. Khang to grow Bo Hong star apple and also purchased products for the garden. Ms. Minh Thu assessed that Mr. Nguyen Van Khang's garden has shown good potential. Although it has just been harvested for the first time, 100 trees have yielded 3 tons of fruit. This is a yield that can be considered very good for Bo Hong star apple. "The characteristic of Bo Hong star apple is that the longer the tree lives, the better the height, the more fruit it produces. Therefore, if cared for properly, the Bo Hong star apple garden intercropped with coffee will bring a stable income for the family", Ms. Huynh Le Minh Thu affirmed.
It is known that Mr. Nguyen Van Khang is carrying out procedures to register a trademark for the Bo Hong milk apple garden as well as his family's coffee garden. He shared that intercropping fruit trees in the coffee garden creates more opportunities for farmers in terms of income as well as sustainable farming orientation, helping coffee trees as well as fruit trees to develop in a green habitat.
Source: http://baolamdong.vn/kinh-te/202502/trong-vu-sua-xen-ca-phe-huong-di-moi-cua-nong-dan-tre-216240f/
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