Mr. Nguyen Van Giao, 72 years old, from Tan Phu Township, Cai Rang District, part of Can Tho City, many years ago, his family failed many times with the chorus of good harvests, falling prices and planting one tree after another. Realizing he couldn’t stand it, Mr. Giao decided to look for another tree with higher economic efficiency to replace his Thai jackfruit garden.

As a meticulous person, he had to worry for many days, learn about many types of plants, but only the four-quarter bamboo could convince Mr. Giao. According to the farmer “U70”, this plant is easy to grow, produces bamboo shoots all year round, is easy to care for and less susceptible to diseases, saving money on pesticides.

For this reason, Mr. Giao boldly destroyed 1 public land (1,000 m2) of his Thai jackfruit garden to plant 200 four-quarter bamboo. In the first year, the four-quarter bamboo garden brought home more than VND100 million from the sale of bamboo shoots and seedlings to the farming family.

“Besides selling bamboo shoots every day, I also collect old bamboo shoots to sell to people who need to build houses or build scaffolding to grow crops. And bamboo leaves are bought for wrapping cakes. Recently, some bamboo farmers also contacted me to buy bamboo for food,” said Mr. Giao.

Mr. Giao shared that each bamboo bush is planted about 3m apart, from planting to the first bamboo shoots harvest, it takes only 8 months. Mr. Giao fertilizes once for about 2 months and waters once every 2 days during the dry season. A bamboo bush, the old farmer can harvest 7-10 bamboo shoots per month, each piece weighs 1.5kg or more.

Mr. Giao revealed that every October he takes dry leaves and covers them with bamboo to keep them moist for growth. For about a year, Mr. Giao cut down the old trees so that the shoots could grow into new trees. Four-quarter bamboo shoots have green skin, less hair, and are not bitter, so they are chosen by women to use in many dishes. Every month, traders come to Mr. Giao’s garden to buy bamboo shoots at VND 30,000-45,000/kg, so they don’t have to worry about the yield.

According to this old farmer, when he decided to destroy the jackfruit garden to grow bamboo, this old farmer initially faced a lot of pressure because his family disagreed, “semi-trustworthy and doubtful” because four-quarter bamboo relative new is plant. After a period of planting during which the effectiveness of this bamboo variety was recognized, lately there are often customers from neighboring provinces such as Hau Giang, Tien Giang, Vinh Long… to order bamboo seeds. His family decided to expand three more estates to grow four-quarter bamboo to meet market demand.

Accidentally reading online newspapers and knowing that Mr. Giao’s family sells bamboo varieties for bamboo shoots all year round, Mr. Nguyen Le Dinh Huy from Chau Thanh District, Hau Giang Province came to learn from experience and seed for 25,000 VND to buy/tree. “I’ve bought 100 trees for trial plantings, if it works I’ll buy more to convert every 3 acres of jackfruit gardening to four-quarter bamboo,” Huy said.

Mr. Huynh Thanh Tung, Chairman of the Tan Phu District Farmers’ Association, Cai Rang District, Can Tho City, informed: At present, there are four households growing four-quarter bamboo in Tan Phu District. According to the evaluation, this model is highly economical. In the near future, the Farmers’ Union will develop a plan to help farmers boldly switch inefficient crop varieties to growing bamboo. The farmers’ union also continued to work with the township people’s committee to transmit the technique of growing four-quarter bamboo so that people could understand and imitate the model.

According to the Agricultural Sector of Can Tho City, in addition to economic efficiency, expanding the area under cultivation for bamboo also contributes to improving the environment by preventing landslides and soil erosion. Also, bamboo growers can combine ecotourism in bamboo garden in Mekong Delta.