By Thai Newsroom Reporters
GROWING MANGO TREES of Khiew Savoey genus in vicinity of a rice farm in extra harvest season used to be a painstaking challenge for farmer Supaluck Chomfuengfung in Doem Bang Nang Buat district of Suphanburi who has spent most time, energy and money simultaneously tending to her rice farm as a primary occupation.
Supaluck launched her mango mission several years ago by initially growing 50 Khiew Savoey mango trees in one rai of land in Nong Krathum subdistrict. Given a quantitative yield of her fruit in the extra harvest season, the woman farmer expanded her mango orchard to three rai of land for another 300 mango trees of the same genus.
Though her farmland is connected to a permanent irrigation system, the water is mostly meant for the rice farms throughout the otherwise drought-stricken subdistrict and not much water would be left for other plants, including her mango trees which need so much water during a six-month period of cultivation between March and August.
Rainwater might not be adequate for the mango trees in the dry season which usually spans across the extra harvest season. The farmer uses dripping water technology as a decisively productive factor to keep the mango trees yielding fruit quantitatively.
Though such agricultural technology costs nearly 10,000 baht per rai, she has learned it is considerably worth investing. Without the dripping water, the farmer admitted, her endeavours with the ever-thirsty mango trees would have been so painstaking she may have given it up for good.
Most mangoes reaped up in the regular harvest season during an early part of year may not fetch a very high price in favour of the farmers largely due to the abundance of the crop.
In the regular harvest season, the freshly-picked Khiew Savoey mango may sell for less than 30 baht a kilogramme at major fruit and vegetable distribution centres such as Talard Thai and Simummuang markets on the northern outskirts of Bangkok.
But in the extra season, the fruit may sell for roughly twice as much an average price at those major domestic markets to the knowledge of the Supanburi mango farmers.
Though Supaluck would keep complaining of the uninspiring selling prices of her rice year in, year out, she is fairly delighted at earning an extra income from her extra-season mango.
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Top: Thai mangoes growing on a tree. Photo: Thai Rath
Home Page: A peeled and sliced mango ready to be eaten, Photo: Sanook.com
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