An old flower farmer gets rich by growing flowers with technology
Rows upon rows of greenhouses, a dazzling array of flower varieties, busy flower farmers in rubber boots... On January 27, the reporter came to a flower park in Zhaochang Subdistrict, Cuiping District. As the imaginary scenes in my mind gradually overlapped with what I saw, I began to feel a little bored. Suddenly, a young figure appeared at the end of the muddy path. "Are you here to buy flowers?" the young man walked up to us and asked with a laugh.
"No, we're newspaper reporters, here to learn about the flower supply and sales situation," one of the accompanying reporters replied. "Oh, if you follow this path, you'll see the potted plants prepared for the Spring Festival. Be careful, it rained, and the path is very slippery," the young man said, pointing to the path.
I couldn't help but size up this enthusiastic young man. He looked about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, and in the pot in his hands lay quietly a few Phalaenopsis orchids and some unnamed plant sprouts. The neatly placed pen on his chest stood out especially against his work clothes. I curiously asked what those things in the pot were for. "These are for tissue culture," the young man said with a smile. His answer aroused our interest. At our request, the young man led us into an inconspicuous building. As soon as we reached the doorway on the third floor, the smell of disinfectant began to drift into my nose. The female colleague with us began to cover her nose and was about to enter the room. "Wait, first change clothes, change shoes, then wash your hands with the liquid in that basin," the young man said urgently, pointing to the white coats hanging on the wall.
After a series of procedures, we entered a small room filled with culture dishes and chemical instruments. Here, the young man told us his surname was Zeng and that he had graduated from Yibin University with a degree in bioengineering. The owner of this flower base was an old flower farmer who had been engaged in flower cultivation for thirty years. In 2007, he decided to use scientific and technological methods to improve the quality and propagation rate of flowers. Xiao Zeng pointed to the rows of culture dishes and said, "With traditional division propagation, one mother plant can only produce a few seedlings a year, but with tissue culture, this new type of propagation method, one leaf or one bud from the mother plant can cultivate at least ten thousand seedlings, and some varieties can even reach several hundred thousand, without harming the mother plant."
On the way back to the newspaper office, the owner of the base called and apologized to the reporter, saying that he had not been on site because he had to talk with several other flower experts. He told the reporter that since using tissue culture technology in 2007, the number of young flower plants propagated had increased several times over, and in four years he had built more than 5,000 sq m of modern seedling greenhouses. "The output value of one sq m is about 200 yuan. This was something I wouldn't even dare to imagine before. This year I plan to build another 6,000 sq m of seedling greenhouses." On the phone, this old flower farmer, whom the reporter had never met, laughed heartily......