The grafted tomato variety is not enough to sell

The type of disease-free tomato was carried out by the Southern Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology and replicated in the population. Seed produced by hatcheries is not enough to sell in the market .

At present, nearly 100% of Lam Dong farmers cultivate a disease-free and grafted tomato variety that is being replicated in many other provinces across the country.

For 5 years, Dien Phuong nursery (Yen Khe Ha village, Lac Lam commune, Don Duong district, Lam Dong province) specializes in providing disease-free tomato rootstocks to gardeners.

On average, this garden sells from 20-25 thousand grafted tomato seedlings not only in districts in the province but also to other provinces. Mr. Phan Van Dien, the owner of the nursery, said that he had been guided by the scientists of the Southern Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology (SEG) on the method of grafting tomatoes and selling seeds to farmers.

A tomato field planted with grafted plants gives this yield
200 tons / ha in Duc Trong, Lam Dong (Photo: Minh Cuong)

'This grafted tomato variety is different from the tomato variety, which is usually resistant to bacterial wilt, 30% or more in the same area' , said Mr. Dien.

Dr. Ngo Quang Vinh, Head of Food Crop Research Department (SIEMP) said that in order to limit bacterial wilt, resistance to long-term varieties and rotation is considered to be the most effective but in fact strong resistant varieties and long-term rotation are not feasible. Therefore, the method of grafting tomato tops on a resistant eggplant or tomato root is considered the most effective solution today.

Lam Dong is a local application of advanced tomato grafting techniques very early. Ms. Nguyen Thi Phuong Loan, Head of Crop Production and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in Lam Dong, said that since 2004, Lam Dong has received technical progress from the Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Science. Currently, the whole province has a huge area of ​​tomatoes of about 6-7 thousand hectares, of which grafted tomato varieties account for over 90%.'Farmers are almost completely shifting to growing grafted tomatoes. Grafted tomatoes have the advantage of bacterial wilt, the average yield is 60-80 tons / ha, double that of regular tomatoes (in greenhouse can reach 100-200 tons / ha) ' , Loan said.

According to Lam Dong Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, there are more than 80 tomato seed breeding farms. Mr. Nguyen Hong Phong, owner of Phong Thuy farm (Lien Nghia, Duc Trong, Lam Dong) said that each day the farm exported about 30,000 grafted tomato seedlings. Tomato seeds as rootstocks are purchased from the Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development and then incubated separately and incubated separately.

'At present, we often transplant 3-4 commercial tomatoes as tops. These are high yielding tomato varieties such as tomato, tomato, red tomato or red diamond tomatoes (red and hard), tomatoes , ' Phong said.

Currently, Phong's farm has about 20 workers who specialize in grafting tomato varieties. On average, one person gets 1,500- 1,700 trees per day. 90% of seedlings are sold to Don Duong, Duc Trong and Da Lat districts (Lam Dong province) and 10% are sold to other provinces across the country such as Long An, Hau Giang, An Giang and Tra Vinh. Hanoi, Lang Son, Nghe An .

While the selling price of tomatoes is usually only 200-250 VND / seedling, the selling price of grafted tomatoes is 600-650 VND / seedling but still cannot meet the demand. Mr. Dien said that the price of grafted tomatoes was double, tripled by two grafted trees, labor cost, labor, bacterial wilt, high yield, and the elimination of wilting of pesticides. bacteriostatic .

According to Dr. Vinh, the current price of grafted tomato seedlings in Lam Dong is also the cheapest in the world (in the US, 0.6-0.9 USD / tree, in Lam Dong 0.6 USD buys 20-21 trees).