New ways to save electricity for dragon fruit growers

On August 10, Binh Thuan Farmers' Association cooperated with Rang Dong Lamp Joint Stock Company to organize a workshop on compact energy saving lamps for red light in dragon fruit production.

In recent years, dragon fruit trees have become enriched trees of farmers in Binh Thuan province. The whole province has an area of ​​dragon fruit about 27,000 ha, the largest in the country.

With the method of lighting the lights to stimulate dragon fruit to be off-season , Binh Thuan farmers actively keep dragon fruits at their will, meeting the market demand year-round. This is a great competitive advantage of Binh Thuan dragon fruit.

However, because the area of ​​dragon fruit in the whole province increased too quickly, the power shortage in the peak season. At this time, farmers in Binh Thuan started to work on the 2016 reverse lamp, so finding a solution to save power but low cost, productivity ensured.

This new measure helps Binh Thuan farmers to actively take dragon fruit to their own will.

After a successful experiment in Long An, Tay Ninh and Tien Giang provinces , the model of using red light to stimulate flowering on dragon fruit trees is a model that has been encouraged by industries to use when source electricity shortage as at present.

According to the Associate Professor, Dr. Le Van Be, Can Tho University, dragon fruit is a long-term tree, wants to produce flowers that need to be lit in the opposite season.

Currently, most growers often use light bulbs 60-75W, projected from 11 hours / night, continuous projection for 20 nights, electricity costs about 20 million / ha / processing cycle.

In 2014, Rang Dong Company and the research team introduced a 20W compact light bulb, a light bulb with a suitable light spectrum that stimulates the off-season dragon fruit tree.

After testing time, compact red light bulbs have been effective, stimulating flowering higher than 60%, power 50% lower than the old system using 60W round lights.

As one of those who bravely converted under the model of red light, Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh, owner of Thanh Thanh dragon farm, Ham Thanh commune, Ham Thuan Nam district (Binh Thuan), said that the farm was present. currently using 6,000 red light bulbs, over 2 years of use, 20W red light bulbs are more efficient than other 20W compact bulbs and other bright yellow bulbs.

Dragon fruit trees are long-term plants that want to produce flowers that need to be lit in the opposite season.

The lighting time for dragon fruits is shortened to 8-9 hours / night instead of 11 hours like the previous yellow light. The lighting cycle also shortened to about 12 nights instead of the previous 15 nights.

Also according to Ms. Nguyen Thi Tuyet, Ham Chinh commune, Ham Thuan Bac district (Binh Thuan), through the comparison of 2 areas of dragon fruit that are cared for equally, but using 2 different types of lighting bulbs, Red light gives very unexpected results.

On the pillars of the dragon is illuminated with red light, the number of branches is flowering and the number of flowers on each branch increases. On average, each post has 28 branches for flowers and 80% for flowers. Besides, 20W compact red light bulbs have a relatively high life expectancy, helping farmers save costs.

With outstanding features, the model of red light on dragon fruit trees not only solves the problem of lack of power for dragon fruit in high season but also helps farmers to save production and improve productivity.