Converting low-efficiency rice land to melons brings higher profits

Healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy profits

Despite the heat of early August, the melon fields belonging to Luong Trong Anh's family in Dao Duy Tu ward (Thanh Hoa) are alive with the sound of water pumps and workers picking fruit. Golden melons and green-skinned cantaloupes head out along the roads with traders as fast as they're harvested.

Busy clearing trellises on a plot that had just finished its cantaloupe harvest, preparing to plant cucumbers, Anh talked about his journey turning low-efficiency rice land into a high-income melon-growing zone. Getting to today's plump, high-quality melons took plenty of setbacks and a gradual process of learning how to improve the soil and choose the right crops.

In 2016, noticing that many local rice plots were performing poorly and that some households were considering leaving them fallow, Anh took the bold step of leasing and borrowing the land to convert it to fruit trees. He first tried red-flesh dragon fruit, but results fell short of expectations, and the savings he had put aside disappeared along with the failed harvests.

Rather than give up after these setbacks, he kept searching for a crop suited to local production conditions that could deliver strong economic returns. While researching effective farming models, he came across cantaloupe, a crop with a short growing cycle, relatively stable yields, and a high market price.

Seeing potential in this new direction, he studied the techniques, took the leap to experiment, and gradually scaled up his investment. His first trial covered four sao, allowing him to monitor growth and the factors affecting it; only once he felt confident did he expand further.

According to Anh, the most important factor for healthy cantaloupe growth is improving the soil. Before planting, the land is plowed, dried out, cleared of weeds, and tilled. Well-composted manure treated with microbial starter is then spread and worked into the soil to boost nutrients and improve texture. On this improved base, he builds raised beds covered with plastic film to keep them dry, with deep drainage channels between beds and around the field's perimeter.

Once the soil is settled, he carefully selects seedlings with strong root systems, good adaptability, and disease resistance for planting, alongside sturdy trellises and a drip irrigation system to maintain steady moisture.

Alongside soil improvement, care must ensure the melons receive adequate nutrients and water, with regular field visits to catch and treat pests and disease early.

Through careful attention to every stage of care, Anh's family has gradually expanded its melon-growing area. To make better use of land turnover, he added cucumbers as a follow-up crop after cantaloupe. His family's total melon-growing area now exceeds 10 hectares.

With this approach, his family harvests an average of 70 to 80 tons of green-skinned cantaloupe and golden melon per year (up to 100 tons in favorable weather years), selling wholesale at 20,000 to 25,000 VND (roughly USD 0.80 to USD 1) per kilogram, sometimes higher, with traders coming directly to the field to buy.

For cucumbers, he harvests about 30 tons per month on average (up to 1.5 tons a day at peak), selling for 12,000 to 18,000 VND  (roughly USD 0.47 to USD 0.70) per kilogram depending on the season. After costs, the melon and cucumber crops together bring in about 450 to 500 million VND (roughly USD 17,600 to USD 19,500) per year.

High profits, high risk

Anh noted that growing melons outdoors improves fruit quality but also brings significant risk, with prolonged rain the biggest threat. When humidity runs too high, plants easily fall prey to disease, damaging leaves and growth. Common problems include downy mildew, anthracnose, nematodes, thrips, and shoot-eating caterpillars. That makes reliable drainage essential on melon land, to keep fields from flooding.

Beyond weather, finding stable buyers also requires careful planning. In favorable weather, melons grow vigorously and produce continuous harvests that can flood the market; without careful timing and attention to market signals, growers can easily face a bumper crop at a rock-bottom price.

He added that building an effective specialized growing zone cannot happen overnight. What matters is accurately assessing each plot's actual conditions, then boldly converting, investing in improvements, and choosing the right crop. When managed the right way, even previously low-performing fields can be "woken up" to generate strong economic value.

Establishing a specialized growing zone is only the first step toward sustaining results and raising product value. Growers need to tightly control the entire production process, especially limiting chemical fertilizers and pesticides and other factors that directly affect crop quality. Safe, high-quality products that meet market requirements make it easier to find buyers and gradually build a stable market.

"Melons have a short, concentrated harvest window, so balancing production with sales always has to be a priority. If you focus only on growing and forget to line up buyers, or chase profit while neglecting production, growing melons won't be sustainable in the long run," Anh said.

1 USD = 26,380 VND (Source: Vietcombank).