New Golden Vegetable Variety in Jixian County Brings High Returns, Boosting Agricultural Output and Income
In recent years, Jixian County has actively developed green, ecological and efficient modern urban agriculture, focusing on building “Jixian agricultural products.” A batch of distinctive agricultural projects with high technical thresholds and high returns have developed rapidly, with broad market prospects, effectively promoting farmers' income growth and prosperity.
Recently, at the Golden Yulan production base in Huawa Village, Shangcang Town, Jixian County, five vegetable production workshops stand side by side. In the growing rooms, seedbeds are stacked layer upon layer, with Golden Yulan chicory plants densely arranged on the seedbeds, their golden-yellow leaves wrapped in layer upon layer, like flower buds about to bloom.
Liu Dan, head of the base, said: “It is a variety of wild chicory. It is cyclical, with two stages. It must be planted in July and harvested in November, taking more than four months to grow roots. The process of growing the vegetable requires using these roots as a substrate, growing in cold storage. Because it is a living vegetable, when harvesting the roots they must undergo freezing and dormancy for more than two months, then be placed in growing trays to grow the vegetable, using water for soilless cultivation.”
Golden Yulan is rich in amino acids and trace elements. It is a premium health vegetable with a tender, fresh taste. It can be stir-fried, used in soups, or eaten raw as a fruit. It has the effects of stimulating appetite and strengthening the spleen, clearing the liver and promoting bile secretion, and relieving intoxication and cutting greasiness. It has long been a best-selling premium vegetable on European and American markets. However, Golden Yulan chicory is delicate by nature and has relatively demanding requirements for growing conditions, requiring fine management such as temperature control, light control and ventilation.
Wei Tao, a staff member at the base, said: “Our environment is purely green and pollution-free. We use a circulating water system. This is well water we pump up, added here, changed at any time. A certain humidity is maintained inside. It must be kept dark and must not see light. Once it sees light, the sprouts turn green and cannot maintain their original color.”
At present, the Golden Yulan production base has joined the ranks of Jixian agricultural product sales. Daily output can reach nearly five hundred kilograms, all supplied by order to five-star hotels and foreign-related restaurants in the Beijing-Tianjin region, produced and sold daily, in short supply, with estimated economic benefits of five million yuan. Liu Xiumei, Secretary-General of the Jixian Agricultural Products Alliance, said: “Golden Yulan chicory sells for about sixty yuan per jin. We have also launched gift box packaging, targeting the high-end vegetable market. Growing Golden Yulan is highly technology-intensive, using soilless cultivation, with no fertilizer and no pesticides. Its precise market positioning and stable customer base are the main reasons it sells well despite its high price. These experiences have good reference value for the cultivation, production and marketing of agricultural products from Jixian's mountainous areas, such as apples.”
It is understood that Golden Yulan chicory, for its unique color and value, is affectionately called “golden vegetable” by local farmers. Next year, the Golden Yulan production base will continue to expand its planting scale on the basis of three hundred mu of planting area, teach surrounding villagers to grow Golden Yulan free of charge, and take responsibility for purchasing the first-stage “semi-finished” Golden Yulan, driving villagers to prosper together.
Liu Dan, head of the base, said: “Next year's development plan is to cooperate with local people and develop another three hundred mu, reaching a base of six hundred mu. We will develop a cooperative: the people grow the roots, I purchase them, achieving a model of agricultural-enterprise cooperation for long-term development. Basically, the economic benefits can be about three times that of growing corn, increasing income for local people.”