Hanging string farming in Hoang Tan

Quang Yen town is characterized by topography and soil of a coastal estuarine delta, with great potential for development of agriculture – fisheries with thousands of hectares of intertidal land for aquaculture. Here, people have created a unique aquaculture model: hanging rope farming in the estuary area. This is also a typical OCOP product of Quang Yen.

The appropriate time for nursing Ha is late February and early March of the lunar calendar.

Hanging string farming is most developed in Hoang Tan commune. Currently the whole commune has thousands of rafts of oysters, large and small. Over the past 10 years, many households in Hoang Tan island commune have developed their economy, enriched by raising oysters.

Previously, the farming of Ha was fragmented, mainly the way of raising on tiger parrot branches, both ineffective and affecting the ecological environment of the mangrove area. Since 2011, a number of households have tried farming by driving piles to the tidal flats, then tie the piles together into trusses and hang up skewer.

Mr. Truong Van Ket, Chairman of Hoang Tan Commune Farmers Association, said: From a few experimental farming households, up to now, the commune has nearly 1,000 households raising hanging ropes, with a scale of over 4,000 hectares of water surface. In this form of farming, they have a fast growth rate, a high survival rate of 80-95%, and a harvest of about 5,000 tons / year.

Working as oyster farming, hanging rope is not too hard, but it requires experience. The farming process is very simple, just take advantage of the exploited shells, bring them to dry in the sun, then punch a hole in the shell to skew to the rope and release. Depending on whether seed is obtained from the wild or from imported seed sources, farmers will create potting ropes with suitable density.

Mr. Nguyen Van Bong’s family in village 5, Hoang Tan commune has been attached to the farming of stringed stringers for more than ten years. Like many other families here, at the end of February, the beginning of the third lunar month is when his family and other households start to breed Ha. In the morning, when the water is dry, people take advantage of tying the skewers of mint to the truss, waiting for the tide to rise. These skewers will become the substrates for the seed in nature to cling to.

After about 2-3 months of nursing, the seedlings have grown to the size of their fingers, people begin to separate each cord to hang to create conditions for the hippopotamus to develop. Each cord has about 5-6 children, hanging about 10-15cm apart. When high tide floods the hanging piles, the tidal currents of the Ha stick cling to the crust and grow and develop on their own. Ha will eat the plankton, algae in the water to grow. So oyster farming does not cost much to buy food and take care like other types of seafood.

However, Mr. Bong also shared that this job is much affected by weather conditions and water salinity, so the risk is quite high. Sometimes, the whole crop will disappear if the water source is polluted, and the disease will die. On the other hand, if the stocking is too dense, it can make the galaxies look fatter for a long time, the harvest time is extended for several months, leading to the higher rate of death.

Model of raising ocean on raft.

The time to switch from summer to autumn when the weather is cold is the time when the hanging rope grows fastest. Farmers have to calculate the tidal water to move the rafts to the farming area with lots of algae to feed them. Usually around November of the lunar calendar begins to harvest.

Compared with wild extraction, the hanging rope model is 10 times more effective, while the initial investment cost is not much, and easy to harvest. Ha in Hoang Tan is of better quality. Because of the mixture of soil, water and soil, the Ha is fat, thicker than the cultured in other localities.

Oyster farming not only brings about great economic value but also benefits in environmental protection. Oysters and mussels purify water through their breathing, and they also eat microorganisms and plankton that make seawater cleaner.

Since the occupation of hanging string, the life of the island commune people gradually changed their flesh. Hoang Tan has become a supplier of oysters, mussels and other aquatic species to a large number of the province, and is famous for its fresh and greasy oyster products. This is also one of the key products of Quang Yen province in implementing the OCOP program, one product per commune and ward.

And when mentioning Hoang Tan, people will immediately remember the profession of hanging rope – a profession that attaches to the lives of coastal people, lives on the sea, contributes to the protection of the marine environment and receives precious gifts. prices from the sea.