Potato production mechanization technology trial and demonstration event successfully held in Zhijiang City

On the morning of December 30, 2015, a Hongzhu-brand potato planter ran briskly across a field in Group 2 of Shaqiping Village, Gujiadian Town, and in no time a patch of farmland was dressed in “silver”. It turned out that this was the site of potato mechanical sowing being carried out by the Gufeng Agricultural Professional Cooperative of Gujiadian Town.

In 2015, Zhijiang City stepped up agricultural structural adjustment, making potatoes one of the city's important grain crops, with a citywide planned sowing area of 50,000 mu. To support potato planting across the city, the Zhijiang City Agricultural Machinery Bureau introduced a Hongzhu-brand potato planter for a trial demonstration in Group 2 of Shaqiping Village, Gujiadian Town. Liu Mingdong, Director of the Yichang City Agricultural Machinery Bureau, Huang Changxian, Deputy Director, and Peng Chuanquan, Head of the Yichang City Agricultural Machinery Extension Station, were on site to provide guidance.

Liu Hongan, Director of the Zhijiang City Agricultural Machinery Bureau, said: judging from the city's agricultural mechanization development, whichever crop has a higher level of mechanization is the one farmers plant more of. In Zhijiang City, rice, wheat and corn have already achieved mechanization, and cotton mechanization has broken through the key bottleneck of mechanized harvesting technology; now the introduction of potato sowing and harvesting machinery will inevitably raise the level of potato mechanization, and the city's potato planting area will certainly increase substantially.