Soc TrangMr. Nguyen Huu Cong, 64 years old, in Long Phu district took nearly 3 years to create a sweet passion fruit variety by grafting it with longan vines, earning nearly two billion VND each year.
Discharged from the army in 1985, Mr. Cong returned to his hometown and stuck with his family’s fields and gardens. As a diligent learner, he is always looking for new things and applying technology to farming. The current result is two sweet lemon gardens always laden with fruit in Phung Son hamlet, with a total area of more than 3.5 hectares.
Mr. Cong said that around 2015, he ordered 10 passion fruit seeds online to plant, but only 3 vines bore fruit. Among them, there is a string of fruit with a sweet taste and a special aroma, unlike other types of passion fruit. He asked some teachers at Can Tho University to instruct him on the technique of grafting vines to propagate strange passion fruit.
Mr. Nguyen Huu Cong’s sweet passion fruit garden. Image: An Minh
Once in the garden, he happened to see a ripe longan fruit, so he came up with the idea of grafting a passion fruit tree into it because the two species have some similar characteristics. His ambition is that the lemon tree will produce sweet-tasting fruit if grafted onto the longan root. “Many people said I was crazy because it didn’t look like a sweet lemon, but I was still determined to do it,” Mr. Cong said.
After many failed tests, in 2019, the special passion fruit vines created by Mr. Cong began to bear fruit and harvested about 200 kg of ripe fruit. When he tried it, the old farmer burst into tears because the fruit had a sweet, slightly sour taste, with a faint scent of longan, different from other types of passion fruit available.
He excitedly gave the strange fruit to relatives and friends and introduced it to the local government. At the Oc Om Bok Festival in Soc Trang in 2020, Mr. Cong brought sweet passion fruit to display. At this time, the strange plant variety was known to the provincial leaders and requested the authorities to support farmers in propagating it.
From the first few dozen passion fruit vines, Mr. Cong continued to propagate them throughout the garden. The old farmer boldly cut down his family’s orange garden to plant 200 new passion fruit trees. This is intended to be the first garden for breeding exotic passion fruit.
Sweet passion fruit has a shape no different from the regular variety, but has a unique taste. Image: An Minh
This farmer said he propagated by grafting passion fruit stems and longans, not using seeds. Because if seeds are used, the outstanding qualities of the plant will not be retained. Compared to other varieties, the sweet passion fruit he created has strong vitality and is easy to care for because it is grafted with wild plants.
“To have sweet passion fruit with the right taste, the original variety must be disease-free. The care process needs to be carefully monitored. If disease is detected, the tree must be removed immediately,” Mr. Cong said, adding that the sweet passion fruit tree was planted later. It will take about a year to bear fruit.
According to Mr. Cong, after 3-4 years of growth and fruit production, it is necessary to renovate the garden and remove old trees. In addition to the first lemon garden, he had to graft new seedlings for additional planting. After the tree bears fruit and tests for stable quality, he continues to propagate it to sell to the market.
While working and learning from the internet and from engineers, Mr. Cong increasingly perfected his breeding techniques. Every year he sells about 6,000 sweet passion fruit vines to the market, at a price of 80,000-100,000 VND per vine. Currently, this farmer’s entire passion fruit area is VietGAP certified. In particular, his lemon garden does not use drugs to stimulate flowering, the trees bear fruit naturally and all year round, each time about 2 months apart. Each year, a sweet passion fruit vine produces about 10 kg of fruit, each hectare produces about 5 tons.
Mr. Cong harvests sweet passion fruit and delivers it to customers. Image: An Minh
In addition to selling through social networks and e-commerce platforms, Mr. Cong built 4 agents in Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho. Every month he sells more than 3 tons of fruit at a price of 80,000-120,000 VND per kilogram. This farmer’s sweet passion fruit product was also recognized as OCOP (one commune one product program – economic development in rural areas in the direction of promoting internal resources and increasing product value) with 3 stars at the provincial level.
The price of sweet passion fruit is 10 times higher than regular types, but due to its unique taste, it is popular in the market. For about a year now, the harvest hasn’t come yet, but customers have already pre-ordered all the quantities. With the current area, his family earns an average profit of nearly two billion VND each year.
“I hope to receive support from the authorities to be eligible to link with businesses to scale up, aiming for export,” Mr. Cong said, stating that market demand is 10 times higher than output. now available.
Mr. Cong has been a good farmer in production and business at the provincial and central level for many years and received the Third Class Labor Medal from the President and Certificate of Merit from the Prime Minister. In 2023, he won the title of Outstanding Vietnamese Farmer.
An Minh