Current Status of and Suggestions for Papaya Production Development: A Case Study of Ninglang County
Current Status of and Suggestions for Papaya Production Development in Ninglang County
1 Development Status
Accelerating the development of papaya production and building ecological industry bases is an important part of implementing the six major strategic goals proposed by the municipal Party committee and municipal government, and is an important measure for further adjusting the agricultural industry structure, promoting comprehensive development of warm and cool mountainous areas, and achieving increased farmer income, rural development, and improved agricultural efficiency. Papaya is a plant of the genus Chaenomeles, a small tree in the subfamily Maloideae of the family Rosaceae, with a total of 5 species, namely Chaenomeles sinensis (Chinese quince), Chaenomeles speciosa (flowering quince), Chaenomeles cathayensis (Chinese flowering quince), Chaenomeles thibetica (Tibetan quince), and Chaenomeles japonica (Japanese quince). Among them, 4 species are native to China and 1 species is native to Japan. The species distributed in Ninglang County are Chaenomeles speciosa and Chaenomeles sinensis. Papaya is a native tree species in Ninglang County, widely planted by the general public around their homes and also used as biological fencing. As of 2014, the county's papaya planting area had grown to 7,066.67 hm2, of which 800 hm2 was fruit-bearing area, with fresh fruit output of 750 t and fresh papaya fruit output value of 1.125 million yuan.
Through years of unremitting efforts, Ninglang County's papaya planting area has steadily expanded, the processing and marketing system construction has developed rapidly, and the strength of leading enterprises in the industry has grown rapidly. The industry leading enterprise Ninglang Nü'erzhen Biological Engineering Co., Ltd. now has 1 invention patent for comprehensive deep processing of papaya products. At the end of 2010, 2 patent applications obtained preliminary examination qualification notices. The "Nü'erzhen" brand series products developed from fresh papaya fruit include preserved papaya, papaya vinegar and vinegar beverages, papaya wine, oleanolic acid, and other biological products. Its products are in short supply in tourism markets such as Lijiang, Lugu Lake, and Shangri-La, and the product sales market prospects are promising. At present, Ninglang County has initially developed into one of the advantageous papaya production areas of Lijiang City.
2 Papaya Market Prospects
Papaya has long been known as the "fruit of a hundred benefits." The fruit is rich in flavonoids, organic acids, pectin, peroxidase, catalase, phenols, superoxide dismutase, and other components, and has effects such as relieving cough and pain, relieving summer heat and promoting urination, removing dampness and harmonizing the stomach, promoting blood circulation and dredging collaterals, nourishing skin and benefiting the lungs, and treating joint pain, all of which have been recorded in many ancient medical texts. Modern medicine has proven that papaya contains oleanolic acid, which has effects such as protecting the liver and lowering enzymes, promoting liver cell regeneration, anti-inflammation, strengthening the heart, and anti-tumor activity, and is an effective component for developing drugs to treat liver disease and lower blood sugar. Because oleanolic acid has pharmacological properties that other drugs cannot replace, the medicinal value of papaya fruit has attracted great attention from the medical and pharmaceutical circles.
Making papaya fruit juice into fruit vinegar beverages can exert its special health benefits. In recent years, the papaya fruit vinegar beverage market has shown a trend of rapid development. The rapid rise of the fruit vinegar beverage market is inseparable from the enhancement of consumers' health awareness. Papaya fruit vinegar beverages are rich in vitamins and trace elements essential to the human body and have extremely high nutritional value and health value, which are the main factors attracting consumers to papaya fruit vinegar beverages. Using fresh papaya fruit as raw material, papaya fruit vinegar beverages prepared by modern processing techniques have effects such as soothing the liver and harmonizing the stomach, relaxing muscles and activating collaterals, softening blood vessels, tonifying the kidneys, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory, anti-aging, beauty enhancement, facial care, anti-cancer and cancer prevention, relieving stagnation and moistening the lungs, aiding digestion, alleviating joint discomfort symptoms, strengthening the physique, and sobering up and relieving hangovers.
Oleanolic acid is an oleanane-type pentacyclic triterpenoid compound with the molecular formula C30H48O3. It is one of the main effective components of papaya and has pharmacological effects such as anti-inflammation, enhancing immune function, lowering transaminases, reducing turbidity, improving symptoms and enhancing liver function, correcting abnormal protein metabolism in the body, preventing liver cirrhosis, lowering blood lipids, lowering blood sugar, promoting urination, and anti-tumor activity, and also has a sedative effect. It is the main raw material for developing drugs to treat liver disease and lower blood sugar. Oleanolic acid has low toxicity, low side effects, and a wide safety range, and is in great demand in the pharmaceutical market. However, because oleanolic acid has a complex structure and artificial synthesis involves cumbersome steps, it mainly relies on plant extraction. Therefore, the successful application of technology for extracting oleanolic acid from papaya is of great significance for developing the medicinal value of papaya.
Oleanolic acid has a strong reparative effect on liver damage. According to statistics, the current domestic demand for oleanolic acid is about 2,000 t/year. Internationally, the selling price of oleanolic acid is 3 million to 6 million yuan/t, with the price determined by purity.
Domestically, only Sichuan has 4 enterprises producing oleanolic acid, with current production of about 1,000 t. If the oleanolic acid extraction patent technology owned by Nü'erzhen Company can be applied to production as soon as possible, it will have a positive and significant impact on the development and utilization of papaya and increasing farmer income. Ninglang County's development of papaya fruit vinegar beverages and oleanolic acid has broad market prospects and obvious location advantages as well as the advantage of lacking market competitors.
1 t of fresh papaya can also produce 24 kg of dried papaya seeds, and papaya seeds have an oil content of 32.6%. The oil contains 4.65% palmitic acid, 67.67% oleic acid, and 23.07% linoleic acid. Papaya seed oil has excellent adsorption capacity and can clean dirt from pores, making it an excellent raw material for cosmetics. In addition, papaya seed oil is also an ideal raw material for making health foods.
3 Existing Problems
At present, Ninglang County's papaya industry is in a period of steady development, the industry base is continuously expanding, and production efficiency is rapidly improving. Because papaya production in Ninglang County started late, some farmers still have the mindset of emphasizing planting over management and emphasizing yield over quality. Problems include low degree of standardized cultivation, low grade of produced papaya, weak market competitiveness of products, and low added value. These are mainly manifested in the following 7 aspects.
3.1 Poor Site Conditions of Papaya Orchards
Most papaya orchards in the main papaya production areas of Ninglang County are dryland cultivated or used as biological hedges. Limited by conditions, water conservancy infrastructure is poor, and most mountain papaya orchards even have difficulty obtaining water for preparing pesticides and foliar fertilizer. Rural roads and field roads are in extremely poor condition, and papaya production is very fragile in resisting natural disasters.
3.2 Weak Production Technology
At present, because farmers' scientific and technological quality is not high and the mindset of prioritizing grain is deeply rooted, it is difficult to promote efficient papaya cultivation and management techniques on a large scale, which affects the improvement of economic benefits of papaya planting. The vast majority of papaya orchards use seedling-grown standard trees with tall cultivation, mostly planted on barren hills and slopes or used as biological hedges, with extensive management, prolonged initial fruiting period, and low yield and poor quality. Papaya planted in earlier years has tall trees, closed orchards, disordered tree shapes, and poor ventilation and light penetration, so the potential for yield and quality has not been fully realized. At the same time, the rapid expansion of papaya area is not synchronized with the popularization and promotion of advanced practical techniques and standardized cultivation techniques. The technical force of functional departments is relatively insufficient, technical training work clearly lags behind, and the phenomenon of farmers emphasizing planting over management is prominent.
3.3 Supply of White-flowered Papaya Varieties Falls Short of Demand
The main cultivated varieties in Ninglang County are Chaenomeles speciosa and the white-flowered type of Chaenomeles cathayensis (commonly known as white-flowered papaya or white papaya). At present, Ninglang County's white-flowered papaya products are in short supply, and the industry is developing rapidly. Therefore, expanding the planting area of white-flowered papaya and actively conducting research on high-yield cultivation techniques for white-flowered papaya are of great significance.
3.4 Relatively Severe Disease Occurrence
Papaya leaf blight occurs year-round, and is especially severe from July to August. Its pathogen is a deuteromycete. In the early stage of the disease, brown spots appear on the leaves, which then gradually expand and turn dark brown. In severe cases, the leaf surface is covered with lesions, and the leaves wither and fall off, seriously affecting the yield and quality of papaya. It has become the most serious problem hindering the development of Ninglang County's papaya industry.
3.5 Weak Post-harvest Management and Low Degree of Industrialization
The post-harvest stage of papaya is also relatively weak. Because papaya fruit output is low, cold-chain transport and controlled-atmosphere storage of papaya are still blank. In addition, due to insufficient fresh fruit raw materials and shortage of funds, new products with promising market prospects developed by leading enterprises, such as papaya vinegar and oleanolic acid, have not yet been put into large-scale production, and the enterprises' capacity for self-accumulation and radiation-driven development is not strong.
3.6 Low Degree of Organization and Weak Scientific and Technological Support Capacity
Economic cooperative organizations for the papaya industry have not yet been established. The county horticultural station has few personnel and many tasks, a large service scope, and incomplete service functions. In addition, the system is not flexible, funding for science and technology promotion has not been included in the fiscal budget at the same level, and technical force is insufficient, so it is still unable to support the sustainable development of the papaya industry.
3.7 Severely Insufficient Capital Investment and Lack of Necessary Working Funds
Because papaya is an extremely minor fruit species in Yunnan Province and Lijiang City, the industry has no normal channel for project funding support. The state has not provided farmers with necessary support for infrastructure, new pesticides and fertilizers, or new technology training. Horticultural technology promotion departments lack necessary research funding for introduction, experimentation, and demonstration, as well as working funds for training and promotion. Therefore, they have been unable to effectively carry out publicity activities, technical guidance, and scientific and technological training for papaya industry development, increasing the difficulty of papaya industry development and restricting the further development of the county's papaya industry.
4 Suggestions
To solve the problems existing in the current development of Ninglang County's papaya industry, the first priority must be to solve the problem of improving papaya quality and efficiency. Production technology regulations for pollution-free and green food papaya should be formulated as soon as possible, and efforts to promote high-quality papaya production techniques such as soil, fertilizer, and water management, pest and disease control, and harvesting, packaging, and storage should be intensified. It is necessary to follow the path of industrialized development, take the market as the guide, take enterprises as the leaders, follow the development path of "company + base + farmers," vigorously develop an integrated management and service system of agriculture-industry-trade and production-supply-marketing, solve the common problems of Ninglang papaya, maximize the enthusiasm of local growers, and promote the healthy development of the county's papaya industry.
4.1 Do a Good Job in Breeding Work and Enrich Papaya Varieties in Ninglang County
Papaya is a plant of the genus Chaenomeles, a small tree in the subfamily Maloideae of the family Rosaceae, with a total of 5 species, namely Chaenomeles sinensis, Chaenomeles speciosa, Chaenomeles cathayensis, Chaenomeles thibetica, and Chaenomeles japonica. At present, the species distributed in Ninglang County are Chaenomeles speciosa and Chaenomeles sinensis. In the future, testing of soil quality and soil fertility in Ninglang County should be strengthened, and breeding should be carried out in combination with other varieties to increase the diversity of papaya varieties in Ninglang County, so as to improve efficiency in papaya production and increase farmer income in Ninglang County.
4.2 Strengthen Papaya Orchard Establishment, Cultivation Techniques, and Fertilizer and Water Management
For papaya orchard establishment, sandy loam plots that are sheltered from the wind, face the sun, have good drainage, and have a pH value of 6.3-7.8 should be selected, and plots with heavy clay soil should not be chosen. Ninglang County has complex terrain and many hilly areas, so compound or fish-scale terraces can be built for planting. When intercropping with low-stalk crops such as potato, soybean, and tartary buckwheat, 2-4 m x 4-6 m is appropriate; for fencing, a 1 m x 1 m planting pattern should be adopted.
Before planting papaya seedlings, the planting pits should first be dug well and backfilled with soil, irrigated, and settled. A small hole should be dug in the planting pit, and the papaya seedling placed in the middle of the small hole so that the root system is fully spread out and avoids crossing and tangling. Then the seedling should be held upright and soil filled in. Attention should be paid to tramping the soil firmly while filling and lifting the seedling, and gently shaking the seedling so that the root system fully contacts the soil. After planting, the planting hole is usually 15-20 cm higher than the original ground surface. Finally, level the ground, make beds, and irrigate with shallow water. After the soil dries slightly, straighten the papaya seedling and build a small mound of soil to retain moisture and prevent wind.
For the planting and management of young papaya orchards, decomposed organic fertilizer should be applied during the dormant period every year or every other year, with an average application rate of 30-45 t/hm2; topdressing should be applied 2-3 times during the growing season, mainly nitrogen fertilizer in the early stage and mainly phosphorus and potassium fertilizers in the later stage, with a topdressing application rate of 450-750 kg/hm2. After entering the fruiting period, pre-flowering fertilizer, post-flowering fertilizer, and fruit expansion fertilizer should be applied in a timely manner. Fertilization methods can use trench application and hole application. Papaya trees should be irrigated 1-2 times in the dry season, and attention should be paid to drainage during the rainy season [3].
4.3 Strengthen Pest and Disease Control and Improve Production Technology Level
4.3.1 Pest and disease control should implement the policy of "prevention first, integrated control." Select high-efficiency biological pesticides and low-toxicity chemical pesticides, rotate pesticide varieties, improve application techniques, and reduce spraying amounts. At the same time, pay attention to protecting natural enemies such as birds, seven-spot ladybirds, green lacewings, and minute pirate bugs.
4.3.2 Timely remove insect-infested and rotten fruit from orchards. Before papaya trees sprout in early spring, scrape off old and peeling bark and burn it in a centralized manner to eliminate overwintering larvae and cocoons. Timely prune diseased shoots, insect-infested shoots, and insect-infested fruit and bury them deeply, with a depth of >=50 cm. The use of sex pheromone lure control technology to control fruit-boring pests such as the peach fruit moth (Grapholita molesta), peach pyralid moth (Dichocrocis punctiferalis), and peach fruit borer (Carposina sasakii) has a relatively good control effect. Scientific research institutions should strengthen information exchange with growers and promote scientific production techniques to improve papaya yield and quality.
4.4 Firmly Maintain Confidence in Development Without Wavering and Strive to Advance Papaya Industry Construction Practice has proven that the papaya industry has good economic benefits and ecological benefits and broad prospects. Therefore, the entire county should firmly maintain confidence in developing the papaya industry without wavering, adhere to the approach of industrialized operation of papaya without changing, and adhere to measures for developing the papaya industry without weakening. Widely publicize the advantages of papaya planting and good typical examples and good practices of papaya planting, deepen the masses' understanding of the papaya industry, and mobilize the masses' enthusiasm for developing the papaya industry.