Picking brooch to earn millions every day

The angle of the brooch is as big as a hug, with a rounded canopy, nearly ten meters high, Chau Rich uses a bamboo ladder about 6 meters long and a bamboo tree with two eyes long to pick low branches. A man from Tri Ton village gently picks each fruit and puts it in a basket. When full, he breaks a few bunches of leaves to protect his face from the sun for a specialty in To mountain.

“Stamping and wilting brooch will not taste good, selling at a low price,” said Rich while pouring the brooch into a large basket for his wife. In addition to picking each fruit, near the end of the crop, when the fruit is fully ripe, two to three healthy people climb up the tree with strong vibrations, the brooch falls on the mosquito net or the net below. Pickers only need to select leaves, dry branches and deep fruits, saving a lot of time.

All six of Mr. Rich’s brooches grow along the dike, next to the family’s field. Originally a gift of the children of the mountains, about 10 years ago, people sold it on the roadside to visitors from all over the world on the occasion of the Lord of Nui Sam, gradually becoming a money-making profession. On average, each tree more than 10 years old can pick 200-300 kg per season, selling price for traders 30-40 thousand per kg. “This tree is not planted by anyone, if it grows on someone’s land, that person’s season will come,” said Rich.

Brooch season starts from mid-April, lasts until the end of June. The brooch is as big as a finger, grows in clusters, black when ripe, sweet and sour, quite familiar to Westerners. They grow scattered in the fields, along the road, but most in the remote An Giang region.

Nearby, Neng Soc Heng and her husband were collecting brooches. Men climb and pick, women pick up ripe fruit and keep it separate. On the tree, in addition to Heng’s husband, the children in the house also swing on the branches, picking and eating food and gifts from nature. Seeing them happy, the mother smiled and told her children to be careful and pay attention to the dry branches.

The brooch is nearly 20 years old, and her relatives let her pick and sell it with instructions. After picking, remember to prune off the mistletoe (parasitic plants), dry branches, so that the next season will produce more wrong fruit. Wild plants are not cared for, watered, or fertilized, but if they get a lot of mistletoe, they will lose strength and flower less. Because she was busy working as hired laborers and cultivating fields, the mother of 7 children forgot about the brooch harvest season. When picking, the ripe fruit fell quite a lot, only two days to collect nearly 50 kg, the fruit on the tree also ran out.

Not far from To mountain field, nearly a dozen people sell carefully selected baskets of brooches. Ma Lin, every day sells nearly 20 kg of brooch, priced at 50-60 thousand dong, a few hundred thousand dong profit. Her family has nearly a dozen brocade trees, picked and sold from the beginning of April. In the basket with nearly a kilogram left, she decided to bring it home to soak. “There are about 5 brocade trees here, which is enough to live for the next 2-3 months,” said Ms. Lin.

The brooch is woody, tall, with many branches and leaves, grows naturally, about 7 years old begins to bear fruit, and has a lifespan of hundreds of years. Every year, the brooch produces flowers around mid-March and the fruit harvest lasts until June.

The brooch has many different shapes, round or long, with more or less rice depending on how big or small the seeds inside are. The weather also determines the size of the fruit, the sun is too hot, the fruit is shriveled, it rains a lot, the fruit is big, succulent, and easy to crack. The sweet and sour taste depends on each tree. Tram can be dipped with chili salt to enhance the flavor. Whoever eats the brooch, the mouth and tongue are all dyed with a characteristic purple color that few fruits have.

Picking mountain brooch to earn millions every day

Ngoc Tai