Farmers harvest vegetable (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) - Farmers in suburban districts of Hanoi resumed workeven as other residents continued their Tet (Lunar New Year)celebrations.
Warm weather in the northern region around Tet createdfavourable conditions for the 2016-2017 Winter-Spring crop, prompting the earlyreturn to the fields.
In Quang Tien commune, Soc Son district, farmerswere back in the fields on February 1, or the fourth day of the Lunar New Year.
One of them, Nguyen Thi Quy, said they had toprepare rice seedlings for transplanting by the end of next week or they wouldmiss the winter-spring crop season.
In Dai Dong commune, Thach That district, somefarmers had already started transplanting the rice seedlings while othersworked the soil and embanked the fields’ edges.
The rice fields, which were covered with water afew days ago, were fresh green with the colour of rice seedlings.
Farmer Hoang Thi Ngan said that during veryfirst days of Lunar New Year, her family members took turns to visit theirfield and nurse the seedlings.
“Tet is not over but it’s time totransplant the seedlings,” she said, adding that weather has been quite goodfor farming so far.
Also on February 1 morning, farmers in Phuc Thodistrict’s Tam Hiep, Ngoc Tao, Phung Duong and Phuc Hoa communes said they wereeager to resume farming.
Nguyen Thi Hoa said that her family wanted tocultivate 2 mau (a mau is 3,600 squaremetres) of rice in this year’s Winter-Spring crop and over the last two days,they’d transplanted rice seedlings on almost on one mau.
Bui Thi Mao, a farmer in Tam Dong commune, MeLinh district, said that farming activities there usually faced a watershortage, so they’d started storing water before Tet.
“The water was pumped from canals into thefields so that farmers could start transplanting seedlings,” Mao said.
Nguyen Vinh Lien, head of IrrigationDivision under the city’s agriculture department, said that five irrigationcompanies in the city worked through the festival to operate the pumps andprovide water for agriculture production.
He said the city plans to have 98,000ha for the2016-2017 Winter-Spring Crop and 45 percent of this area has received water forcultivation, helping farmers resume work early.
Vegetable growers in Van Noi commune, Dong Anh districtwere also busy in first days of new Rooster Year.
The vegetable gardens of Van Tri hamlet in Van Noicommune is a major source for markets in Hanoi, providing about 100,000 tonnesof fruits and vegetables every year.
Bui Thi San said that vegetables grew well inongoing weather conditions and growers like San were happy to see increased demandand consumption for vegetable during Tet celebration.
Flower growers across the city including thosein Me Linh and Bac Tu Liem districts have harvested the last flowers andstarted preparing the soil for new crops.
Nguyen Thi Ty of the Tay Tuu flower village saidthat her family grew 1.5 mau of lilies for Tet,but suffered losses because of unfavourable weather conditions.
As she removed dead lilies and tilled the soil,she said she would grow roses for Valentine’s Day this month and Women’s Daynext month, and hoped the weather would be good.-VNA
VNA
