If there was a competition for the biggest winter melon in Viet Nam like there is for pumpkins in England, the farmers of My Tho Commune in the central Binh Dinh Province would win.
Last year, a giant 47kg winter melon, also known as the wax gourd, made the headlines in Wenchang in China's Hainan Province. It was auctioned off for a record 5,000 yuan (US$731) and the grower was awarded a motorbike.
But such an enormous melon is not a big deal in Chanh Trach 1 and Chanh Trach 2 hamlets in My Tho. It is not uncommon for the farmers to see their fruit grow to as much as 40 to 50kg, which is three or four times the normal weight.
Although melons are not the main crop of the farmers in this impoverished coastal commune, they have brought fame to the area thanks to their giant which many people say deserves to be recorded in the Guinness Book of Records.
No one knows exactly when farmers started growing melons in Chanh Trach or why they grow to be so huge.
Tu Thang, a 63-year-old farmer, said he remembered seeing even larger ones as a little child.
"In those days, some fruit grew as high as 1.4m which even four people found difficult to lift. It's normal for a melon to weigh up to 50 or 60kg," he said.
Truong Ton, another farmer in Chanh Trach 1 who has grown the fruit for years said the biggest melon he'd ever seen weighed as much as 80kg.
This year, Ton's family has one trellis with about 40 vines and each vine produces one or two melons.
"All of them are plump," he said laughing. "It's easier to grow giant melons than normal ones here."
Ton said farmers in his village have no secret cultivation techniques. The melons are grown in the same way as in many other places. The only special thing is they need to build much more solid "homes" for these giants.
The growers have to use 50 to 70 big bamboo trees to make a trellis and maintain it when the plant begins to produce fruit, he said.
"When a melon begins to get big, we use ropes to prevent it from falling", Ton said.
At harvest time around March and April, Ton's and other farmers' houses in the village are swamped with melons.
The fruit, of which both flesh and seeds are edible, can be used to make a number of favourite dishes. Farmers in Chanh Trach also store the water extracted from the vines to make juices, which they say are both delicious and able to cure some common ailments.
The repute of the special melons has travelled far beyond the province and attracted many curious people from other regions to visit the area. They have also been displayed at many agricultural exhibitions. Some farmers from as far away as the northern provinces have made the journey to ask for seeds and advice on cultivating techniques.
But the amazing thing is that when the same seeds are taken away from the hamlet, they only produce normal-d melons.
"Just 1km away from Chanh Trach, melons will only grow to the regular of 10 to 15 kg," said Nguyen Ngoc Tuyen, vice chairman of the commune's People Committee.
Tuyen said that only the two hamlets of Chanh Trach 1 and Chanh Trach 2 can grow such massive melons.
Big yield, not big money
But being big is not always good. Although, the extraordinary winter melon has made Chanh Trach farmers famous, it has not brought them much in terms of financial benefit.
While Tu Thang and Truong Ton stick to growing the fruit to maintain their family tradition, many others in their hamlet have given up due to difficulties in finding a market for the product, Tuyen said.
He said the problem is that the farmers have not succeeded in finding large, steady customers so the price of melons is very unstable.
In fact, greengrocers and market traders don't like to buy the giant melons due to the logistics of transporting and selling them.
"One giant melon provides enough food to feed a family for several days. People tend to opt for regular-d gourds because they don't want to eat that much," said farmer Ton, adding that he sometimes has to pluck his fruit early before they get too big to sell.
Two years ago when the melons were displayed at a provincial festival, many traders from other regions and a food processing company from HCM City attended and promised to buy large quantities of the melons.
The good news encouraged many farmers in Chanh Trach to grow more melons, and wait for the money to start rolling in. But the promises were not kept and the poor farmers suffered great losses last year with melon prices dropping to as low as a third of the usual value.
The only reason Ton can come up with for the lack of buyers for his hometown's speciality is that difficult transportation puts people off.
"Come what may, I will keep growing my huge melons. It is my family's tradition and also part of my life," he said.
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