The Institute of Science firmly stands in the market mechanism: Super Product T6 removes the worry of 'where to consume the fruits being in season?'

Re-cultivation of sloping land

As of 2022, Son La is the province with the largest longan area in the country, with 20,000 hectares and an output of approximately 100,000 tons. A year earlier, the Intellectual Property Office of Viet Nam (Ministry of Science and Technology) decided to grant a certificate of trademark registration for "Son La Longan", which is considered an affirmation for this tropical fruit on the sloping land.

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The Institute of Science firmly stands in the market mechanism: The director must be like a master

The Institute of Science firmly stands in the market mechanism: Stand on your own feet with scientific products

However, it is well known by few people that about 5 years ago, when the scheme to develop fruit trees newly formed in the province, longan trees received many doubts from the people. The main concern of the farmers, in general, lies in "Where to consume the fruits being in season?"

An urgent requirement for farmers and scientific researchers is to spread the crop over thousands of hectares of longan by any ways so that the longan is not simultaneously ripe. In addition, it is important to select longan varieties with strong growth ability, high yield, and good fruit quality to diversify the structure of longan varieties.

Since 2010, FAVRI has researched, selected, and tested T6 longan variety in the northern provinces. During the 5-year trial period from 2014 to 2019 at three sites: Dai Thanh commune (Quoc Oai district, Hanoi city), An Vi commune (Khoai Chau district, Hung Yen province), and Yen Hung commune (Song Ma district, Son La province), the Institute has produced T6 longan with strong growth ability, large and lightly twisted leaves, and a glossy dark green leaf surface.

The flowering time of the T6 variety is around two months, almost similar to the flowering time of the main-season longan variety, Huong Chi. The yield of T6 longan at the trial sites reached 31.5–33.7 kg/tree at the age of 6 years. The variety attained good fruit quality; the brix level reached 21.3–22.5%, and the edible portion ratio reached 66.8–68.6%. The concentrated harvest time of the T6 variety is usually earlier than that of the main-season longan. Since 2019, the Department of Crop Production has recognized the T6 longan variety and allowed trial production in the northern provinces.

Mrs. Pham Thi Thanh's family, one of 17 members of Hung Loc Agricultural Service Cooperative, Song Ma district, has been transplanting T6 longan variety for three years. Previously, like many other households, her family planted local longan variety on an area of more than one hectare. However, because it coincides with the time of harvesting main-season longan in Hung Yen, the family's profit is almost negligible.

Following the advice of some members of the cooperative, her family learned to cut and transplant longan trees with decades of age with the T6 longan variety provided by FAVRI. From half-believing, half-suspecting, Ms. Thanh's family was convinced by the yield and quality of the new longan. "My family often sells longan early, from about June, with a value several times higher than that of the main-season longan. At the highest price, the price of longan reached 60,000 VND/kg, helping my family earn about VND 350 million," she said.

Not far from Mrs. Thanh's house, Hoa Muoi Agricultural Service Cooperative, Chieng Khoong commune, also boldly converted 13/30 hectares of Mien Thiet longan into transplanting T6 longan variety. In the second year, the members of the cooperative are impressed by the economic efficiency that early-ripening longan brings.

Mr. Luong Van Muoi, Director of the Hoa Muoi Agricultural Service Cooperative, said that the biggest difficulty in advising members of the cooperative to switch to early-ripening longan variety is that the longan being harvested stably but suddenly being cut causes people to lose two harvest seasons. "Not only is the care technique required to be strictly followed and takes a lot of effort, but people also have to closely monitor the growth of the longan tree and, at the same time, based on the weather, determine the time to cut branches and stimulate the crop to flower," he shared.

Thanks to the determination and consensus of the members, the early-ripening longan variety produced by the cooperative was displayed at the exhibition space of Song Ma district at the Vietnam Fruit and OCOP Product Festival 2022, which took place in Son La City at the end of May 2022.

Currently, the harvest time of early-ripening longan variety in Son La usually takes place 1-2 months earlier than that of the main-season longan variety. Since then, farmers here have more conditions to consume products and, at the same time, avoid the situation of "falling in value" as before.

Promoting early-ripening longan

In the North, longan is centrally planted in a few provinces, including Lao Cai, Son La, Thai Nguyen, Bac Giang, Hai Duong, Hung Yen, and Hanoi. Of which, Son La and Hung Yen are the two provinces with the largest planting area and annual harvest production.

According to FAVRI, northern longan varieties are more concentrated in late-ripening line, with HTM1 and HTM2 varieties planted in Hanoi and PHM99-1.1 variety grown mainly in Son La and Hung Yen. With early-ripening line, only the PHS2 variety is grown on a small scale in Khoai Chau district, Hung Yen province. In addition, before the announcement of the T6 variety, the main-season longan line had not been focused on research, and only the Huong Chi longan variety had been selected.

In order to prolong the harvest season, in addition to applying technical measures, it is necessary to have a suitable variety structure for each line. Therefore, FAVRI has been actively coordinating to transfer the technical process of transplanting to improve and replace local varieties in production. Up until now, the process of grafting, improving, and replacing varieties has been replicated on 5,000 hectares of longan in Song Ma and Mai Son districts, Son La province.

PhD. Nguyen Quoc Hung, Director of the Fruit and Vegetable Research Institute, said that during the testing process, the yield of longan varieties at all three planting sites increased gradually with the age of the trees. In particular, the yield of the selected longan strain T6 was over 15% higher than that of the control variety. Some criteria for evaluating fruit quality of the selected longan line T6, such as sugar content, vitamin C, etc., are equivalent to or higher than the same evaluation criteria for the control variety.

"Harvest season is one of the indicators showing the variety’s characteristics and partly determining the economic efficiency of production. The monitoring results show that the selected longan line T6 at the trial site in Son La has a harvest time about 10 days earlier than in Hanoi and Hung Yen planting sites, "said PhD. Nguyen Quoc Hung. This is also considered one of the criteria to help the T6 longan variety be more and more widely hybridized in the northern mountainous province.

According to Mr. Nguyen Van Phuong, Vice Chairman of Song Ma People's Committee, Song Ma district currently has more than 7,500 hectares of longan growing area, of which about 300 hectares are early-ripening longan, concentrated in Chieng Khoong, Chieng Khuong, and Na Nghiu communes. To achieve the goal of 1,000 hectares of early-ripening longan by 2030, Song Ma is directing the district's specialized agencies and the People's Committees of communes to actively coordinate with FAVRI to disseminate and guide farmers to transplant early-ripening longan varieties to spread the crop and improve income for longan growers.

"The expansion of early-ripening longan areas helps promote the application of scientific and technical advances to production, especially putting new varieties of high economic value into production and successfully performing the task of spreading the agricultural crop," said Vice Chairman Nguyen Van Phuong.

Not only for its high yield, Song Ma early-ripening longan also attains delicious quality and a beautiful design and is ordered by many traders inside and outside the province.

Since 2017, the Song Ma People's Committee has periodically organized the "Song Ma Longan Festival". This is an opportunity for local people to promote the Song Ma longan trademark to a large number of domestic and foreign tourists.