Poor harvest predicted for off-season mangos

 

HCM City (VNA) - Farmers who grow mangos in the off-season in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta are forecasting a poor harvest as prolonged rains have affected fruit production.    

Advanced techniques and chemicals have been used to induce mango trees to bloom so they can produce fruit for the Christmas and Tet (Lunar New Year) seasons. 

In Hau Giang province, many farmers treated their Hoa Loc mango trees to bloom in early September, but rains affected the flower production.

Hoa Loc mango is one of the delta’s specialty fruits which are in high demand, especially during major festivals. It takes about three months to harvest ripe mangos.

Tran Van Quang, who has 0.5ha of Hoa Loc mango in Chau Thanh A district’s Tan Hoa commune in the province, said that 100 of his mango trees did not bear fruit after blooming because of prolonged rains. The trees would have yielded seven to eight tonnes of fruit.

“We sprayed chemicals, but it did not work,” he said.

Quang said he has spent more than 20 million VND (900 USD) to buy chemicals to spray his mango trees.

Dinh Van Phuong, who has 10ha of mango and has grown the fruit for 23 years in Chau Thanh A’s Bay Ngan town, said he had treated 800 mango trees to have off-season flowers that could be harvested at Christmas. However, the yield was low.

Phuong said his family would lose about 20 tonnes of mango, or about 400 million VND (18,100 USD), when the harvest comes. 

Dang Kiem, head of the Chau Thanh A Plant Protection Station, said in recent years mango farmers had grown off-season mangos to meet market demand and sell mangos at a high price for Christmas and Tet.

“Mango orchard owners are expected a yield decline of 40-50 percent in the off-season harvest,” he said.

In previous years, farmers in the district harvested an average of five tonnes per ha of mango for Christmas, he said.

This year, district farmers have treated about 145 ha of mangos to produce fruit to sell during Christmas.

With an estimated yield loss of about 50 percent, farmers will lose more than 350 tonnes of mango.

In Dong Thap province, which is the delta’s largest mango producer, prolonged rains and hoar frost caused off-season mango blooms to fail to bear fruit. In addition, many young off-season fruits withered and fell off the trees.

Dong Tháp’s mango supply for the coming Tet, which will fall in January, is estimated to be fall by 60-70 percent compared to the last Tet, according to the province’s mango orchard owners.

The province has more than 9,300ha of mango, with annual output of about 90,000 tonnes.-VNA