Winter-Spring Rice Trials
As a border commune of Ky Son district, Na Ngoi has very few rice fields due to the high and steep mountainous terrain. Many years ago, the people here rarely grew summer-autumn rice because the weather was too cold, but mainly grew spring rice.
In recent years, with the technical and human resources support of local armed forces, including the Border Guard and the National Defense Economic Group 4, the people of Na Ngoi have gradually become familiar with and practiced wet rice cultivation. In some villages with flatter terrain such as Huoi Thum or some points in Phu Kha 1 village, people have also begun to experiment with summer-autumn rice cultivation, but the yield is still unstable.
For example, in the summer-autumn rice crop of 2023, in Phu Kha 1 village, according to Party cell secretary Vu Ba Tong, with the support and assistance of Na Ngoi Border Guard Station and National Defense Economic Group 4, this year the village tested growing summer-autumn rice on the rice fields of 3 households, Vu Ba Po, Vu Ba Bi and Vu Ba Xenh, with the amount of seeds planted being 20kg of rice.
After more than 3 months of harvest, although the new rice variety has quite firm flowers and heavy grains, the rate of pests and rats is high. The reason is that the surrounding fields are not planted with rice and other crops have been harvested, so pests concentrate on the rice fields, especially rats. Therefore, in general, the harvest of summer-autumn rice - the season is not promising.
According to Mr. Vu Ba Tong, if we want the summer-autumn crop to be successful, we must plant simultaneously in all the fields of the village or commune. For example, in Huoi Thum village, for about 3 years now, the whole village has been planting summer-autumn rice, so the yield is quite stable, about 4-5 quintals/ha.
The whole Ky Son district has more than 800 hectares of summer-autumn rice. Currently, people have almost finished harvesting, the average yield is about 4 tons/ha, the output is 3,233.2 tons; of which upland rice is about 5,000 hectares, the yield is 12/quintal/ha, the output is 6,128 tons.
Converting the structure of suitable varieties and crops
Ky Son has a very unique terrain and climate, including some localities such as Na Ngoi, Huoi Tu, Nam Can, Tay Son with high mountains, cold, steep slopes, so rice cultivation, especially summer-autumn rice, needs to be considered.
For example, in Nam Can, the Chairman of the Farmers' Association of Ho Ba Po commune said that in the summer-autumn crop - the 2023 season, all 6 villages of the commune grew rice, but only 2 villages, Khanh Thanh and Pa Ca, had a crop failure with an area of about 60 hectares. The main reason was drought, then rain, which made it impossible to retain water during hot weather, and eroded when the rain lasted for a long time.
Nam Can residents also shared that in recent years, the weather has been erratic, with many long and consecutive hot spells affecting people's lives and economic development, especially farming, so some households have stopped growing rice, switched to growing other crops, or abandoned the summer-autumn crop. Therefore, for upland rice in 2022, the entire Nam Can commune only met 90.13% of the planned planting area. The same will be true in 2023.
To limit the instability and damage that reduces crop productivity, localities in Ky Son have issued specific instructions to promote the effectiveness of cultivation. For example, in Nam Can commune, the leader of the commune People's Committee said that the commune is orienting people to gradually change the agricultural economic structure, including changing the crop structure in some villages. This includes converting self-sufficient rice cultivation to commodity production to meet market demand; some villages with ineffective rice cultivation are gradually switching to growing crops with higher economic efficiency such as ginger, peaches, and peanuts.
For localities suitable for rice cultivation, Ky Son district has also structured rice varieties with higher yield and quality. Some places have implemented this and achieved positive results, such as in Bac Ly, Muong Ai, and Chieu Luu communes.
Specifically, at the end of October 2023, the Ky Son District Agricultural Service Center organized an evaluation of the results of the "High-quality rice variety intensive farming model VNR 20" in Muong Ai commune. This is a new rice variety model that the District Agricultural Service Center has been testing on a scale of 20 hectares, with 30 households participating with an implementation cost of nearly 500 million VND. Participating in the model, households are supported with seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and training in production technology transfer. The VNR20 rice variety is 95 - 100 cm high, the flag leaves are slightly large, upright, with strong tillering and compact clumps, so initially it showed an average yield of 7.5 quintals/ha, 10-15% higher than local rice varieties.
VNR20 variety is short, so it has good lodging resistance, good resistance to planthoppers and rice blast, and a growing period of 105 - 110 days. Up to now, the entire demonstration area of VNR20 rice variety has been harvested. It is expected that the district will continue to survey to convert the structure of varieties and crops for each specific locality to maximize advantages, limit disadvantages, and ensure productivity and quality./.
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