Bảo tàng Cội Nguồn - Phú Quốc

PEPPER GROWING

Phu Quoc pepper is a kind of spice which is considered the specialty in Phu Quoc island, Kieng Giang province, Vietnam.

Phu Quoc pepper is famous for its good scent and spicy taste, much stronger than those from other regions in Vietnam. Red pepper is among the specialty. Pepper is harvested according to its ripe time mainly by hand. Locals sort the ripe ones into 3 types: (so, black and red).

Another special planning technique is that farmers would apply new soil from their gardens to manure around the feet of the trees (which is called “xay thau”). Besides, farmers may not use or use very little of chemical fertilizers.

Beard peppers are grown from trunks, which leads to high price. To grow one hectare of pepper requires a huge amount of money (from 300 to 400 millions VND). Thus, there are very few farmers that could afford to grow large areas. In stead, they would grow gradually year by year. That is the reason why there are trees with unequal ages in a pepper garden.

People grow peppers in Phu Quoc hundreds of years ago; the average growing area is 471ha, centering in 3 communes: Cua Duong, Cua Dang and Cua To. In the years 1995 to 2000, the total area was 1000ha. This was also the time when pepper price reach a peak (100,000 to 120,000VND/kg), and peasants at that time could earn up to 200-300 millions VND/ha.

Two main species of pepper are Ha Tien and Phu Quoc. They have the time of harvesting quite similar (from lunar November to the end of lunar February). Ha Tien species is more productive, but easy to die and to be affected by insects.

The productivity of Phu Quoc pepper is from 2000 to 3000kg/ha; density is from 2500-3000stings/ha.