Famous in a mountainous region
With its gentle, pure beauty and pleasant fragrance, blending with the clear blue sky and bright yellow sunshine, the blooming pink lotus flowers are as beautiful as a watercolor painting. Wherever you go in Ninh Binh in the summer, you can easily see lotus ponds in full bloom.
Lotus is everywhere because it is grown by local people. Lotus blooms in rice fields, in lakes, at the foot of the dike, along both sides of the Ngo Dong River. Even in the homestay where you are staying, you can grow beautiful lotus pots and lotus ponds.
It seems that the lotus ponds in the ancient capital of Hoa Lu have a more beautiful blooming time and keep their color longer than many other places. If the normal lotus ponds only bloom for more than 1 month, the lotus in some of these lands bloom beautifully until the end of the year. But the time from June to August is when the lotus blooms most beautifully.
Ninh Binh lotus is grown by local people in the fields of Cua Dinh, Trieu Sau, Bay Doi... of Hoa Lu district. These are places quite close to the tourist areas of Tam Coc-Bich Dong, Thung Nham, Thung Nang...
With the vast space of the valleys, in the distance are the green mountains, very convenient to serve the tourism service needs of visitors from all over. Having a lotus lake blooming, blooming at the right time, especially lasting for several months, requires lotus growers to grasp, choose lotus varieties, test planting to monitor adaptation, record the time of flowering, fruiting...
Thanks to labor, "lotus experts" and businesses specializing in supplying lotus varieties of all kinds have appeared in the area. Currently, this place has the top lotus varieties in Vietnam, such as thousand-petal lotus (S1000), superLotus, white Quan Am lotus, bluedarling lotus, pink lotus...
Ms. Le Thanh Huyen, Director of HaLi Production, Trade and Service Joint Stock Company, Ninh Tien Commune (Ninh Binh City) said: Realizing the advantage of diverse and rich tourism resources, my family invested in growing lotus, while focusing on creating an ecological tourism landscape.
Currently, HaLi has 48 hectares of lotus of all kinds, including in Ninh Thang and Ninh Xuan communes, of which 22 hectares are being directly exploited. Lotus of all kinds has been and is promoting the strength of the tourist area. Along with creating a beautiful scene for visitors, lotus also produces flowers and leaves. When the weather turns to winter, lotus switches to harvesting roots. From lotus raw materials, HaLi has currently developed and produced nearly 20 products. Typical products include Thanh Xuan lotus leaf tea (3-star OCOP), dried lotus seeds, lotus root starch, dried lotus root, lotus wine, or the main ingredients for making handicraft products such as immortelle flowers, lotus paper, etc.
It is known that in the future, HaLi is promoting investment in building a lotus cultural space exhibition area, experiencing handicraft making, and developing the economy associated with tourism development in the area.
Multipurpose lotus planting
For more than 3 years now, implementing Resolution No. 02-NQ/HU of the Standing Committee of Hoa Lu District Party Committee on promoting the transformation of crop and livestock structure, improving production efficiency, linking agricultural production with tourism and service development, up to now, the district has about 55 hectares of lotus cultivation.
Many models of growing new varieties of lotus combined with fish farming for tourism and services in the communes of Ninh Hai, Ninh Xuan, Ninh Thang, Ninh My and Truong Yen have brought about very good economic efficiency. Thanks to "multi-purpose" lotus growing, many households in Hoa Lu have become rich.
Comrade Pham Thai Thach, Head of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Hoa Lu district, said: With low-lying terrain, the district's agricultural economy is difficult to develop. The whole district has more than 3,000 hectares of rice land, however, many areas of land are interspersed with mountain foothills and flooded land, making it difficult to cultivate rice, so many households are no longer attached to rice cultivation.
To overcome the problem of abandoned fields, Hoa Lu district has a policy of agricultural development to increase production value on cultivated land, including converting areas that are difficult to grow rice to growing new lotus varieties combined with fish farming, associated with the development of eco-tourism.
Grasping this trend, many communes in Hoa Lu district have conducted surveys and selected areas to convert ineffective rice growing areas to tree planting and raising specialty animals, linking agricultural development with ecotourism development, promoting local strengths. In particular, researching the cultivation of various types of lotus is a solution.
According to statistics, in recent years, many households, groups of households or companies in Ninh Thang commune have signed contracts to rent and invest in planting dozens of hectares of new lotus varieties on low-lying land and poor rice fields of the commune members. The lotus growing model combined with ecotourism has brought high economic efficiency to the people. The lotus tree has an average seed yield of 3.6 tons/ha, an average flower yield of over 30 thousand flowers/ha; and an average root yield of 4.2 tons/ha.
In addition, lotus also produces other products such as lotus leaves, lotus shoots, lotus tea, etc. Estimated income from growing lotus and raising fish reaches over 400 million VND/ha/year. Not to mention the income from recreational fishing and resort services in many households with ponds, combined with homestay models. Records in localities with models of growing new lotus varieties, raising fish combined with tourism show that, with many lotus varieties planted in alternating seasons, the lotus blooming season also lasts from May to the end of November every year.
Along with the beautiful natural scenery, lotus ponds in full bloom, especially lotus flowers blooming out of season, tourists have many choices for traveling and taking photos with fragrant lotus ponds in the ancient capital.
More happily, in early August 2023, the departments, branches and Hoa Lu district organized a conference to announce the certification mark "Hoa Lu-Ninh Binh Lotus" for products made from lotus plants of Hoa Lu district. "Hoa Lu-Ninh Binh Lotus" is labeled as a product with a reputation and quality associated with the ancient capital of Hoa Lu, which will certainly bring many benefits to growers, producers and consumers, contributing to promoting local economic development and beautifying the image of the ancient capital of a thousand years of civilization.
Article and photos: Minh Duong
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