Mr. Huan and his pomelo orchard
Upstream the Huong river and through Kim Long, you can see the lush orchards laden with red pomelos of Huong Ho ward (Huong Tra town).
Mr. Nguyen Van Huan, one of the households with a large area of red pomelo plantation cheerfully said: "The pomelo trees have never been as lush and fruitful as this year, their quality is good as well. Thus, they are favored by the traders. This year must be a big success.”
The red pomelos have brought high income. His family has just built a new spacious house, which was mostly thanks to the income from planting pomelos. Last year, Mr. Huan’s profit from pomelos was more than VND 50 million.
The reason for the name “red pomelo” is that the pomelo meat is pink and sour, but it still has a fine sweetness when people try it. The more the red pomelo ripens, the more sour it is becomes.
According to the local people, this kind of pomelo was from the ancient time, passed down from the ancestors and planted in Huong Ho. The soil here was alluvial, warped by the Huong river every year. This made the red pomelos have the very special taste.
Besides Mr. Huan, many other households are planting red pomelos with large area, such as Mr. Nguyen Van Dai, Mrs. Pham Thi Thanh Loan. The biggest one is Bui Van Mau's pomelo orchard, with about 100 pomelo trees, earning over VND 200 million per year.
The red pomelo is a perennial tree, which must be planted for 4-5 years before harvesting. The tree starts to blossom in January, and the harvest season is between July and August (in Lunar Calendar).
Each tree gives about 250 pomelos on average; the productivity is from 2 to 3 quintals. At present, there are more than 100 ha of pomelo plantation of nearly 800 households across the ward, but concentrated in two villages of Long Ho Thuong and Xuoc Du.
With the price from VND 10-15 thousand/pomelo, the fruit is very popular to traders from other cities such as Hanoi, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh city... Red pomelos bring high economic efficiency, many households’ income is from fifty to hundreds of million VND per year.
Mr. Bui Van Sam, Director of Huong Ho 1 Agricultural Cooperative said that despite good economic efficiency, this kind of tree had also had periods of ups and downs due to natural disasters, diseases and old trees; so they were not be effective any more. Since the cooperative chose pomelo trees as the staple ones in economic development, focusing on training, transferring technology, supporting members to renovate the orchards, Huong Ho red pomelos flourished gradually.
According to the plan in the coming years, the cooperative will mobilize people to expand the plantation area under the model of conversion of land use from vegetable fields to red pomelo ones. At present, the cooperative has been building collective trademark of "Huong Ho red pomelo" in order to support the local people. The products are expected to be labelled on the fifteenth of the lunar July.
By Minh Nguyen