Busy winter potato planting in Yilong Town, Shiping, Yunnan

On the eve of the Winter Solstice, the villagers' committees of Doudiwan, Gaojiawan, and Xiaoshui in Yilong Town by Yilong Lake in Shiping County seized the farming season to rush-plant winter potatoes.

In recent days, the weather at Yilong Lake has been clear and sunny, making it an ideal time to sow winter potatoes. Farming households in the villagers' committees of Doudiwan, Gaojiawan, and Dashui by the shores of Yilong Lake went all out to seize the favorable opportunity, with everyone turning out to rush-plant overwintering potatoes. When this writer arrived at the shores of Yilong Lake, the flat and neatly arranged farmland of over a thousand mu presented a scene of bustling activity. The tractor roads between the fields were parked full of tricycle motorcycles, small agricultural trucks, and walking tractors of various models carrying potato seeds, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides. In the fields, some farming households were busy rushing to harvest late-autumn sword beans, winter cabbage, and green vegetables to free up the land in time for planting potatoes; some were plowing with machines and harrowing with oxen in their own contracted fields, building ridges and digging pits, selecting seeds and sowing; and some were covering the plots already planted with potatoes with plastic film to prevent waterlogging and resist drought.