What problems currently exist in China's walnut industry?

  Mixed varieties and poor commodity consistency

  Some places neglect varieties, plants are uneven in quality, lack reasonable planning and design, and fail to implement scientific, regionalized orchard establishment, resulting in poor site conditions, improper variety selection, and poor quality of nursery stock. Historically, because grafting and propagation of walnut in the north was difficult, people could only develop walnuts through seedling propagation. Although the walnut grafting problem has now been completely solved, and a batch of high-productivity superior varieties has been bred, the proportion of superior varieties is very small. Production still relies on individuals from past seedling propagation, with low yield, large variation between individuals, poor commodity consistency, and a low degree of variety standardization, which is not conducive to intensive management and results in low efficiency.

Pictured: walnut

  Extensive management, low yield and poor quality

  Some places emphasize planting over management. Many walnut orchards are abandoned or semi-abandoned, with insufficient fertilizer and water, improper pruning and shaping, and severe pests and diseases, and fail to implement intensive and meticulous management. The planting sites are poor, management is extensive, there is a lack of understanding of the development of commercial walnut production, and the selection of sites for the tree species is neglected, with blind planting. At present, the proportion of scattered and dispersed walnut trees is too large, making manual management impossible, allowing pests and diseases to spread, making harvests difficult to guarantee, let alone commercial fruit production.

  Emphasis on planting trees, neglect of management. In many areas, walnuts are managed using forestry production methods, with no fertilization, no irrigation, no pruning, and no pest or disease control, letting them grow naturally. Even for walnut orchards with better site conditions planted at a certain spacing between rows and plants, management remains only at the level of tending them incidentally while managing intercrops.

  Market development is unsound, and product sales channels are not smooth

  The main reasons are poor information, inconvenient transportation, poor grading and packaging, and constraints from the foreign trade market, with a lack of standardization and commodity awareness in the field of commodity circulation. Fruit farmers basically do not communicate with one another, and the proper forms of organization and economic communities linked by interests have not been formed. Channels for the exchange of technical information and market information are not smooth, leaving production in a relatively closed state and making it difficult to adapt to the requirements of large-scale commercial production under market economy conditions.

  Storage and processing links are weak

  Because some people are bound by traditional ideas and lack storage and processing conditions and technology, they have insufficient understanding of fresh-keeping storage and value-added processing transformation, or are unable to do it. China's walnut production uses farming households as the basic unit, and the vast majority are part-time operations, with very small cultivation areas. Postharvest handling technology is backward, and there is no specialized equipment for peeling, drying, and washing. If bad weather occurs, mildew may also develop, causing losses, and the commercial quality of the fruit is difficult to guarantee.

  Lack of talent, lack of technology, and lack of funds mean the economic benefits that should be obtained are not achieved.