EXPERIENCE IN GROWING DRAGON FRUIT TREES IN TAIWAN

"Dragon fruit trees of Taiwan are grown on a high rack to drain water. They are spread a lot of rice husks, chicken eggs, and ducks under the tree to enhance the calcium for the plant to grow." Experience in growing dragon fruit using new Taiwanese methods was shared by Associate Professor Ph.D Nguyen Minh Chau, an expert on fruit trees and Dr. Nguyen Van Hoa, Director of Southern Fruit Research Institute (Sofri).

1. Calcium for dragon fruit.

According to the Department of Plant Protection, Vietnam dragon fruit has been exported to 30 countries and territories, including markets requiring high quality food hygiene and safety such as the US, Europe, the United States and Japan. In 2013, the export turnover of dragon fruits reached more than 150 million USD, a sharp increase compared to 5.8 million USD in 2003; in which, Vietnam exported 1,200 tons of fresh dragon fruit to the US at relatively high prices, leading many businesses to promote the dragon fruit collection to complete orders for American partners. However, Assoc. Prof. Ph.D Nguyen Minh Chau, former Director of Sofri said: “Despite achieving outstanding results, Vietnamese dragon fruit will face fierce competitive pressure because of many countries in the region and especially Dai Loan, China has begun to mass grow this fruit tree! ".

Assoc. Prof. Ph.D Nguyen Minh Chau said that in order to target a good export market, enterprises must also promote brand identity and diversify products to create a good competition with other nations' dragon fruits in the future. Currently, dragon fruits of Vietnam are only exported fresh, processed products such as drying, making jam, wine, fruit juices ... are only counted on the fingers.

According to Mr. Chau, Taiwan is now able to harvest dragon fruit all year round and China has also deployed a plan to plant more than 20,000 hectares of dragon fruit. Although China has unfavorable weather conditions and has only recently developed dragon fruit cultivation, Chinese farmers can also harvest dragon fruit all year round thank to the financial capacity and modern farming techniques. The highest yeild reachs 100 tons / ha and lowest one reachs 60 tons/ ha.

Sharing about the practical experiences of growing dragon fruit in Taiwan, Mr. Chau said: “This field trip in Taiwan made us very surprised by the dragon fruit growing models, because the trees fruit even in the middle of winter with very high yield. Dragon fruit trees of Taiwan are grown on a high rack to drain water, and they spread a lot of rice husks and eggshells under the tree to enhance calcium for the plant to strongly thrive and help preserve fruit in a long time.

Dragon fruit gardens in Taiwan are grown by farmers on a large scale and are fairly methodical. The distance between 2 trees is about 1 meter, and the trees are about 3 meters from the row. Most dragon fruits are covered and all the pillars are made with iron instead of cement pillars or living trees like Vietnam. Furthermore, automatic watering system is used both on top and bottom. They prune very carefully, leaving only one branch and one layer, unlike the practice of growing dragon fruits of Vietnamese people, who often have the habit of keeping many branches and layers, creating conditions for the strong development of pests. “Visiting their gardens, we saw the entire branches of dragon fruit trees being big, similar and without signs of pests and diseases. On average, each fruit is about 1.2 kg and each branch only has one fruit, unlike our dragon fruit garden, which usually keep 2-3 fruits, resulting in the quality is not ensured… ”, Mr. Chau shared.

2. Need to have a specific plan

"White spot disease on dragon fruit trees (also known as brown spot disease, chameleon or "ghost disease ") in Tien Giang and Long An is now very popular because of heavily polluted irrigation water. Dragon fruit needs a large source of nutrients, so pruning and feed the plants by re-used compost as Taiwan's experience is very necessary ", Dr. Nguyen Van Hoa said.

Facing the challenges of the export market that may have a negative impact on the domestic production and consumption of dragon fruits, Assoc.Prof.Ph.D. Nguyen Minh Chau said that Vietnam needs to have a suitable plan to produce dragon fruits to avoid dragon fruit products from Taiwan and China. On the other hand, businesses must also focus on the promotion and expand the export market of dragon fruit to the US and Europe, and reduce dependence on China. At the same time, scientists must increase research, cross-breeding new high-quality dragon fruit varieties to increase their competitiveness with dragon fruits grown from other countries.

According to Dr. Nguyen Van Hoa, Director of the Southern Fruit Institute, in order to solve the above concerns, Vietnam needs to expand the dragon-growing acreage in the provinces with suitable conditions, and expand the markets, instead of depending too much on China. “The Institute is conducting experiments to light dragon fruit trees with 17W bulbs to replace for the current 20W bulbs of Vietnamese gardeners or the 23W bulbs used by Taiwan to increase efficiency and reduce production costs. We will also quickly research and cross-breed yellow dragon fruit as New Zealand to create new, unique varieties and transfer to local people in order to diversify products and increase economic efficiency ”, said Dr. Nguyen Van Hoa.

According to: nongnghiep.vn