Mao’s pomelo orchard with 300 trees, covering an area of 1.5 hectares in Trinh Xa 1 hamlet in Yen Ninh commune in Yen Dinh district in Thanh Hoa province, is about to be harvested.

This is the first year Mao has seen beautiful fruits. The farmer expects to harvest 10 tons of pomelos this year with the average selling price of VND10,000 per kilogram, for a total earnings of VND100 million.

Mao said in previous crops, pomelo trees bore fruit, but many rotted and fell prematurely due to pests. To solve the problem, he bought pesticides and wrapped fruits with plastic bag, but it was not a good solution.

“I had to spend VND30 million on plant protection chemicals and fertilizers,” he said.

Since the day he bred yellow ants instead of using chemicals, Mao can save a lot of money, while the pomelo quality has improved, and the environment and people’s health are protected. Mao called yellow ants the ‘guards’ of his pomelo orchard.

In order to have hundreds of ant nests, Mao worked with the Plant Protection Center Region IV to organize the breeding and using yellow ants to prevent pests on pomelo trees.

Mao was initially confused about the best way to raise ants. But later, with guidance from technical officers, he understood the ants’ habits and could easily breed them.

‘Once you breed ants, you must not use any kind of chemical, or ants will die,” he said.

At first, to attract ants to nest, Mao used plastic bottles and chicken intestines to lure them. He fed the ants periodically.

"However, you must not let the ants eat their fill, and hunt for food themselves; that is the way you can kill insects," Mao explained.

After one year of developing ant nests, Mao now has hundreds of nests in his orchard. To create ‘paths’ for ants to move, he connected  pomelo trees with plastic wires.

In his orchard, there are a lot of plastic bottles containing chicken intestines, which ants eat to have better nutrients.

Mao puts prematurely fallen pomelos on the ground, so that ants can ‘drink’ water from the pomelos when necessary. The fallen pomelos are also turned into organic fertilizer.

Mao said yellow ants are easy to be breed and can kill many harmful organisms. On grapefruit trees where yellow ants live, there are almost no harmful insects.

Le Duong