At the start of this year’s rainy season, coffee farmers in Đắk Lắk have introduced a simple and low-cost method to rejuvenate their aging coffee plantations—one that could deliver significant results.
Specialized coffee growers in Đắk Lắk devised the following technique: they plow a trench about 40 cm deep and 30 cm wide between every two coffee rows to sever the old root layer. Then they fill the trench with well-composted manure to stimulate the growth of fresh young roots.
So far, most coffee growers in Ea Pốk township (Cư M’gar District) with old plantations have hired plowing services—at about 600,000 VND per hectare—and these rejuvenated fields are already showing good growth. With this method, farmers expect yields to rise by 20 – 30 percent next year.
Vietnam currently has roughly 86,400 hectares of coffee trees over 20 years old that need to be replaced or rehabilitated. Yet effectively renewing or replanting such old coffee areas is far from simple. In recent years, many enterprises and households have tried to revitalize their coffee plots without achieving the desired results. This practical initiative offers a promising approach that could be widely applied to rejuvenate Vietnam’s aging coffee acreage in the coming years.