In 2019, while watching TV by chance, Mr. Thi, a farmer in Tang Tien Ward, Viet Yen Town, Bac Giang Province, saw that the lotus growing model combined with fish farming brought high economic efficiency.
Mr. Thi came up with the idea of growing lotus on his family's 3.5-hectare rice field where he was raising fish. Thinking about it, Mr. Thi bought seeds and traveled to many places to learn about growing lotus combined with raising fish.
Initially with 3.5 hectares of fish farming combined with lotus growing, Mr. Thi's family has now expanded the farming scale to 7 hectares of fish farming - lotus growing, bringing high economic efficiency.
Lotus is an easy to grow plant, requires little care, only the initial cost for planting, then only need to take care of fertilizer to harvest.
At the beginning of the season, lotus seeds cost about 40,000-50,000 VND/kg, lotus flowers and young lotus buds cost 20,000-30,000 VND/bunch of 10 flowers.
Each hectare of lotus cultivation yields about 2 tons of seeds. In addition, fish farming combined with lotus cultivation yields about 7-8 tons of fish/ha per year.
With an income scale of 120 - 150 million VND/ha, growing lotus combined with raising fish on rice land has brought economic efficiency 5 times higher than normal rice cultivation for Mr. Thi's family.
The lotus pond of Mr. Do Van Thi's family, a farmer in residential group 7, Tang Tien ward, Viet Yen town, Bac Giang province, is entering the lotus and lotus bowl harvest season. From the lotus growing model combined with raising freshwater fish, Mr. Thi has earned hundreds of millions of dong each year.
To ensure that lotus flowers bloom evenly, farmers also need to pay attention to planting lotus at the right time. Lotus is planted once a year, starting from February and after 4-6 months it can be harvested.
During the care process, special attention should be paid to cutting off diseased and ineffective leaves to reduce the amount of fertilizer and to concentrate nutrients on developing flowers and lotus buds.
When harvesting, it is also necessary to harvest at the right time depending on the need to harvest flowers, young or old seeds, we choose to harvest at the right time and distribute the flowers evenly across the lotus pond.
Mr. Do Van Thi shared: "Taking care of lotus plants combined with releasing fish requires paying attention to the lotus leaf-eating worms that appear from February after the lotus plants have young leaves and the leaves have not yet grown above the water surface, lasting about 2 months.
To eradicate this worm, farmers need to pay special attention and absolutely do not use pesticides to spray on lotus plants to kill pests that affect fish. If you want to eradicate it, you can use manual methods to catch it by hand to kill the worms that eat lotus leaves.
Along with that, the local government has worked with technology transfer units such as the Viet Yen Town Agricultural Technical Service Center and Viet Yen Town Agricultural Extension Officers (Bac Giang Province) to increase the application of science and technology in production.
The Center and localities encourage people to grow lotus combined with fish farming. They need to be careful during the implementation process, and need to have a firm grasp of the techniques for growing and caring for lotus plants as well as caring for fish raised in lotus ponds.
“Up to now, Viet Yen town has about 50 hectares of lotus growing of all kinds, concentrated in the communes: Tang Tien ward, Quang Chau ward.
The area for growing lotus combined with fish farming is about 10 hectares. The types of fish raised in the pond are usually surface water fish: grass carp, common carp, etc. The water is shallow, the stocking density is low, so the fish productivity in the lotus pond is not as high as that of normal fish farming in ponds and lakes.
However, combining fish farming with lotus cultivation has helped people increase economic value on the same land area," said Ms. Nguyen Thi Hue, an officer in charge of agriculture in Tang Tien residential group - Viet Yen town, Bac Giang province.
Planting lotus on ineffective rice fields has brought a new green - clean - beautiful look to the countryside in Viet Yen town.
It can be said that the lotus growing and fish farming model is a new direction that not only develops the household economy but also opens up many prospects towards the eco-tourism model. Currently, local people are interested and have plans to expand the model in the near future.
Source: https://danviet.vn/nuoi-ca-dong-duoi-dam-sen-tot-um-he-be-hoa-bat-ca-len-la-ong-nong-dan-bac-giang-ban-het-veo-20240717200021127.htm
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