A type of red sweet corn originating in Thailand has recently captured a lot of attention from both Vietnamese consumers and farmers.

The corn breed, named Ruby Queen, has been officially permitted to be cultivated and traded in the Vietnamese market, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced on Saturday.

According to Nguyen Quoc Ly, director of a center specializing in plant and crop testing under the agriculture ministry, this is the first sweet corn variety that is edible without the need to be boiled or cooked.

The Ruby Queen is characterized by its dark red color and sweet taste, along with rapid growth in just 58 to 62 days, Lu continued, adding that farmers are able to harvest around 10 to 12 metric tons of the crops per hectare.

The corn breed has been in demand, said Doan Van Toa, a farmer in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang who previously planted the crop for testing purposes.

Each seed of the sweet corn is selling for VND500 (US$0.02), Toa elaborated, adding that the seed is now quite rare due to the high demand.

A Ruby Queen corn is offered at VND20,000 ($0.86) to VND35,000 ($1.5) in the Vietnamese market, the farmer said.

Buyers can also purchase the products directly at local farms at VND5,000 ($0.2) apiece.   

The prices are three to four times higher than those of regular corn varieties in the country.

According to Ta Wee Sak Pulam, who created the corn breed, the Ruby Queen is the world’s first-ever variety of sweet corn that has a reddish color.

It took Pulam and his company six years to research and create the type of crop, he added.

The number of seeds purchased by Vietnamese farmers over the past time is beyond expectation, Pulam continued, expressing his hope that the Ruby Queen will soon become popular in Vietnam, just like it did in Thailand.

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