Effectiveness of the Cayen pineapple growing model

With the characteristics of easy growing, low investment cost, and being suitable for soil conditions, the Cayen pineapple growing model in Phu Khe commune, Cam Khe district, has been bringing practical economic efficiency to the people.

Cayen pineapple grown in Phu Khe has delicious quality, a beautiful appearance, and a high selling price, bringing practical economic efficiency to the people.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong in the Dong Muoi area, the first person to bring Cayen pineapple to grow locally, said: “Through research on mass media, I learned that in provinces such as Nghe An, Dak Lak... there is a Cayen pineapple variety with large, delicious fruit, a high amount of honey in the fruit, and a higher yield and selling price than domestic pineapple, favored by the market and people. In October 2020, I spent more than 10 million VND to buy 5,000 Cayen honey pineapple trees to intercrop with Thai jackfruit trees on an area of over 4,000 m2 of my family’s hill garden land.".

Due to being suitable for local soil conditions and being cared for by Ms. Hong according to the instructions, the honey pineapple trees grew well. After 18 months of planting, the honey pineapple trees began to yield delicious fruit. The product was easy to sell and had a good price. Ms. Hong added: "Seeing my family successfully grow Cayen honey pineapple, some people in the commune followed suit. This year, the pineapple crop was better than previous years, and the price was also higher. In addition to harvesting fruit, there is also additional income from selling seedlings, which is expected to bring higher income than previous years. In addition to more than 1 ha of land currently being harvested, my family has 15,000 trees that will bear fruit next season.".

Through local monitoring, Cayen honey pineapple has the advantage of being easy to grow, has few pests and diseases, does not require much care, and is suitable for many different areas, especially hilly areas; the planting season is from July to October every year. After 18 months of planting, the fruit is harvested. The harvest period lasts from 2 to 3 months, so people can proactively sell the product. Cayen honey pineapple has a high yield, large fruit weighing 2-3 kg, a beautiful shape, shallow eyes, delicious quality, and is suitable for fresh eating, juice processing, and canned food.

People in Phu Khe commune harvest cayen, honey, and pineapple.

According to preliminary calculations, each hectare of Cayen honey pineapple can yield 7,000–10,000 fruits; currently, with an average selling price of 20,000 VND/kg, it can earn 150–200 million VND/ha/crop. The product is purchased by traders at the site and is currently not enough to supply the market.

In particular, not only for fruit harvesting, each Cayen honey pineapple tree has 3-5 more shoots so that people can proactively source seeds for the next crop; the remaining shoots are sold at 2,500–5,000 VND per shoot to increase income.

Mr. Vu Ngoc Manh, Chairman of the Farmers' Association of Phu Khe commune, said: "The whole commune currently has nearly 20 households participating in growing Cayen honey pineapple with an area of about 3 hectares, of which 6 households grow a lot with a number of more than 10,000 to more than 50,000 trees, mainly concentrated in Dong Muoi, Doai Trong, and Luong Luu areas... The Cayen honey pineapple growing model in the locality has been and is bringing about efficiency; people in and outside the province come to visit, learn from the experience, and follow it successfully.".

Given the practical effectiveness of the model, the District Farmers' Association has recently come to inspect the reality to support people in replicating and expanding the scale of the model.

With the participation of the locality, the coordination of the Farmers' Association in training, guiding, and transferring technical processes for planting and caring for people; creating conditions for people to expand the land area suitable for growing honey and pineapple; increasing promotion, introduction, and finding output for the product; motivating and encouraging people to connect and move towards preliminary processing and processing to improve product quality, thereby promoting the advantages and potential of the locality.

Ngoc Lam