The Road to Cultivating and Promoting Hanfu Apples: The Story of Li Huaiyu of Shenyang Agricultural University

Fu Changxiang is a farmer in Xinnongcun Township, Xinmin City, Liaoning. Fourteen years ago, his whole family lived on 6 mu of poor land, and life was very difficult. In 2002, Li Huaiyu, a female teacher from Shenyang Agricultural University, came to the village to give a lecture. Fu Changxiang took Teacher Li's advice and planted all 6 mu of land with Hanfu apples. Five years later, the trees entered the full-bearing period, and the apples from the 6 mu sold for 90,000 yuan, equivalent to 15 times the previous corn harvest.

At noon on September 8 this year, hearing that Teacher Li had come, Fu Changxiang hurried to the village office. "Wait, this Teacher Li is a man?" While he was wondering, Men Yutao, deputy township head of Xinnongcun Township, told him: "Teacher Li Huaiyu passed away 3 years ago. This Teacher Li is her husband, Li Jiafu."

Fu Changxiang looked sorrowful and was silent for a long time. "Teacher Li was kind and patient," he said. "At first she taught us in the classroom, but when she saw we could not understand, she simply took us out to the field to explain."

There was once a conclusion in academic circles: in areas where the average January temperature is below minus 12°C, apple trees cannot survive the winter, so places such as Shenyang, Tieling and Fushun do not produce large apples.

One person refused to believe this and kept working on breeding "cold-resistant" apples. This person was Li Huaiyu, a graduate of the Department of Horticulture at Shenyang Agricultural University.

From 1959 to 1979, Li Huaiyu spent 20 years completing the first round of cold-resistance breeding trials and bred the first new cold-resistant apple variety, "Shenxiang." "Shenxiang" tasted good and was not afraid of cold, but it did not store well, which affected farmers' returns. After 1979, Li Huaiyu spent many more years breeding the second generation of cold-resistant apples: Hanfu apples.

The "Dongguang" apple comes from Poland. It is cold-resistant, stores well and is high-yielding, but its most fatal drawback is that it is sour. The industry believed that the sourness of "Dongguang" was controlled by homozygous dominant genetic genes and was inborn, so no one had ever used it as a parent. However, through extensive research, Li Huaiyu proved that the sourness of "Dongguang" was not homozygous dominant inheritance, but a heterozygous genotype controlled by a single factor. Once it was "matched with a suitable mate," it could absolutely produce sweet apples.

The "suitable mate" Li Huaiyu chose for "Dongguang" was "Fuji" from Japan. "Fuji" is tender and juicy, but not cold-resistant. After being matched with "Dongguang," the resulting "Hanfu" not only inherited the large size and cold resistance of "Dongguang," but also inherited the advantages of "Fuji": bright appearance and sweet, crisp, delicious flavor.

"Hanfu" was the "child" carefully bred by Li Huaiyu, but getting this "child" accepted by farmers still required a long journey. In 1987, Li Huaiyu happened to meet a farmer driving a horse cart on campus. His name was Liu Tao, from Shenjingzi Town, Dongling District, Shenyang City. Having just graduated from junior high school, he had heard that Shenyang Agricultural University sold saplings and came to try his luck. Li Huaiyu invited him into the classroom to attend lectures for free and also made his family's contracted land a development and promotion trial base.

The "Hanfu" fruit trees at the trial base flowered in 2 years, set fruit in 3 years, and by the 5th year reached a yield of 10,000 jin per mu, with income per mu exceeding 10,000 yuan. In less than 10 years, Liu Tao's family built a large house, bought a car, and he was elected president of the "Hanfu Apple Association." He hung a sign on his minivan: "Hanfu Apple Technical Service Vehicle," and went around freely promoting Hanfu apple cultivation techniques.

In 2002, Liu Tao and Li Huaiyu came together to Xinnongcun Township, Xinmin City, and gave the first lesson on Hanfu apple cultivation in Xinjiacun Village. Now, Xinnongcun Township has 32,000 mu planted with Hanfu apples. Men Yutao told reporters that from this one item alone, the township's per capita income reached 10,500 yuan. More than 400 households in Kaoshantun Village all became prosperous by growing apples and all moved into buildings constructed uniformly by the village collective. Grateful for Li Huaiyu's kindness, the villagers specially named the village square "Huaiyu Square."

Last year, Shenyang City adopted a "three-year plan," planning to newly develop 150,000 mu of Hanfu apples within 3 years, making Shenyang China's number one city for Hanfu apples.

"The success of Hanfu apple research and promotion is the inheritance of Shenyang Agricultural University's spirit of invigorating agriculture through science and education," said Liu Guanglin, president of Shenyang Agricultural University. From breeding cold-resistant varieties, to tackling key high-yield technologies, to forming an industry, three generations of Shenyang Agricultural University people struggled for 40 years.

As early as 1956, among the research topics formulated by Shenyang Agricultural University was "selection of cold-resistant apple varieties," led by Professor Tan Qimeng. The national higher agricultural college textbook on fruit and vegetable variety breeding that he edited was used in agricultural colleges for decades. In the mid-1980s, after Shenyang Agricultural University resumed operation, Jing Shixi, director of the Department of Horticulture, led the application for the research topic "fruit tree breeding research," and Li Huaiyu specialized in cold-resistance breeding. After Li Huaiyu retired, her students Professor Liu Guocheng and Professor Lü Deguo took up the "relay baton."

Starting in 1999, her successors carried out continuous research centered on establishing a theoretical system and technical integration for high-quality, efficient apple production in cold regions. Aimed at orchard establishment models, integrated management, pruning and training, pest and disease control, and natural disaster prevention, they formed a complete set of safe and efficient production technology systems.

The research results of three generations of Shenyang Agricultural University people meant that north of the 41°C north latitude line was no longer a forbidden zone for large apple production, and along the line of average January temperature of minus 12°C, an apple-growing belt was formed. Hanfu apples have not only been promoted in the three northeastern provinces, but also in **, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia and other places, and even promoted abroad across national borders. Professor Lü Deguo told reporters: "Hanfu apples have been promoted on 2 million mu nationwide, driving more than 300,000 people into employment, and increasing farmers' net benefits by more than 15 billion yuan." Reporters Bi Yucai and Liu Yong, correspondent Zhang Yijun