Grafting technique Son Tra (H'mong version)

Son tra, aka the H’mong apple, taorung, maccam, or macsamcha depending on whether you are in Vietnam, India, Myanmar, or some southern provinces of China, is an indigenous fruit tree species growing naturally in forests around the Himalayas. It is especially abundant in areas populated by the H’mong people in Northwestern Vietnam, hence the local name ‘Hmong apple’ (Docynia Indica).Listed as one of 50 specialty fruits by the Vietnam Records organization, son tra was until recently still considered a non-timber forest product relegated to small-scale wild collection and local consumption at a district level.Largely testament to the growing value of the fruit to a bigger consumer base reaching as far as supermarkets in the capital Hanoi; research efforts to understand the nutritional properties and increase production by adding value to son tra have played a twofold role in its burgeoning presence.In 2012, when a research objective on value addition to agroforestry products commenced in Northwestern Vietnam, the sour, greenish yellow fruit was still in the early stages of domestication with the culturally diverse but extremely poor communities in the uplands who made their living off the surrounding forests.Vietnam is one of the poorest countries in the Southeast Asia region. National statistics indicate that of the 30 ethnic groups who reside in the Northwestern uplands, the Thai, Kinh, H’mong, Muong and Dao peoples are the poorest in the country with a proportion of poor households nearly three times as high as the national average.Remote and mountainous, forests occupy more than half of the 4.4 million hectares which are home to the 3.4 million people (4 percent of Vietnam’s population). But unsustainable shifting-cultivation practices and a fast growing population are encroaching dangerously on the forests, changing landscapes to barren hills with high erosion and poor soils, leaving communities with few livelihood options.H’mong farmers around the forested areas of Son La, Dien Bien and Yen Bai were especially susceptible. However they are also the closest to son tra sources in natural forests and government run reforestation plantations. For development finance partners like the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), this meant that supporting the promotion of son tra as a cash crop in these areas where opportunities are extremely limited was an optimal option.

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