Autumn grain harvest is now a foregone conclusion, with Shandong, Henan and other provinces reporting a steady stream of good news
A large corn field in the ten-thousand-mu demonstration area of Chengxinzhuang Village, Liugu Town, Hua County, Henan Province, where late-harvest technology is being promoted. Experts explain that for corn that is peeled, sun-dried and harvested late, each day's delay in harvest can increase corn yield by 10 kg per mu.
Autumn is at its fullest, and across ten thousand miles of farmland, a picture of autumn grain harvest is spread everywhere. According to the Ministry of Agriculture's agricultural situation monitoring, the autumn grain harvest in Shandong, Henan and other provinces is now a foregone conclusion. According to preliminary yield estimates, Shandong Province's autumn grain area is 55.475 million mu, an increase of 1.17 million mu over the previous year, up 2.1%; total output is 46.976 billion jin, an increase of 800 million jin over the previous year, up 1.7%.
There was once a time when drought was severe, threatening autumn grain production on the North China Plain; there was once a time when aphids and borers were gnawing away at the foundation of a bumper autumn grain harvest on the North China Plain…… The golden corn is telling us that it really is true that “in the Year of the Ox or Horse, farming goes well”, and the North China Plain has harvested yet another bumper year.
Fields sleep beside irrigation canals, free from worry about drought or flood
“I really never expected such a big bumper harvest this year!” At the edge of a corn field in Guozhai Village, Linyi County, Shandong Province, Zhang Xinyao, a large-scale grain grower known as the “Grain King of Dezhou”, could hardly hide his joy.
How big a bumper harvest? Zhang Xinyao pointed to the large corn field before him: “Just this field, the county agricultural department has only just estimated the yield, and the per-unit yield is above 1,200 jin!”
This year's drought was unusual. From spring to autumn it kept being dry. This was a major drought unseen in decades in Linyi's meteorological history, so it is no wonder the farmers were all sweating over the autumn harvest. As Chen Guangchun, deputy county head of Linyi County, was speaking, Zhang Xinyao cut in: “When you see the fields cracking open, how could you not worry?”
Why was a big bumper harvest still achieved? Small-scale farmland water conservancy came in very handy. In recent years, Linyi County has worked hard to open up the “last kilometer” for crops crying out for water. In 2012, the county launched a small-scale farmland water conservancy project to eliminate blind spots in irrigation and drainage. In July this year, the first phase of Linyi's “2013—2015 High-Standard Farmland Water Conservancy Construction Demonstration County” project was completed and put into use. The total investment in the project was 24.12 million yuan, with 14 new small water pumping stations, 72 culverts, 56.3 km of desilted ditches, 26 km of newly built production roads, 129 km of buried pipelines, and 23,000 mu of high-standard water conveyance irrigation area completed. Six new technologies were adopted, including soil moisture monitoring, unmanned monitoring and automatic alarms, basically achieving information-based irrigation.
After the small-scale farmland water conservancy project was put in place, irrigation conditions for farmland in Linyi County improved markedly. The county's effective irrigation area reached 701,000 mu, water-saving irrigation area reached 410,000 mu, annual irrigation water savings reached 120 million cubic meters, the county's comprehensive grain production capacity increased by 12 percentage points, with an average annual increase in output of 38.8 million kg and farmers' income increasing by 4,038 yuan.
Water conservancy projects raising comprehensive grain production capacity, and in a year of major drought, the protective role of water conservancy for crops was once again confirmed in Hua County, Henan Province.
Hua County has 1.95 million mu of cultivated land and year-round grain planting of more than 2.7 million mu, with total output of 2.7 billion jin. It is a typical major agricultural county, major population county and major grain county, long known as the “Granary of Northern Henan”, and is China's number one wheat county, Henan Province's number one major grain-producing county, and a national advanced county in grain production for “eleven consecutive championships”.
The drought unseen for many years made Hua County extremely anxious. Since 1963, Hua County's grain production had not encountered such a major drought. Because Hua County had always attached great importance to farmland infrastructure construction, “in the end, the drought still could not do much to us.” County head Chen Zhong said with deep emotion.
Since 2012, Hua County has planned 33 ten-thousand-mu plots, 38 thousand-mu plots and 10 hundred-mu plots of high-standard grain fields, with a planned area of 1.55 million mu, comprehensively coordinating land improvement, irrigation and drainage, field roads, forest network protection, power support and other engineering projects, carrying out concentrated construction, and improving farmland infrastructure. The county's retained motor-pumped wells reached more than 36,000, and the effective irrigation area reached 1,560,600 mu.
“Fields sleep beside irrigation canals, free from worry about drought or flood!” Chen Zhong said that in the face of this year's exceptionally severe autumn drought, Hua County planned ahead and responded scientifically, winning the battle to combat drought and ensure a bumper autumn grain harvest, and the yield estimates again showed a big bumper harvest.