When are Luochuan apples in Shaanxi harvested this year? In 1948, a general brought back apple saplings

My hometown is in Luochuan. Luochuan apples generally ripen in mid-to-late August.

People regard Luochuan as part of northern Shaanxi because it administratively belongs to Yan'an. But Luochuan people call only the area north of Ganquan northern Shaanxi. One basis for this is that the northern Shaanxi dialect has heavy nasal sounds and surviving words from ethnic minorities, whereas Luochuan speaks the round and full-toned Guanzhong Qinqiang dialect.

I deeply love my hometown Luochuan. But rationally speaking, its northerly latitude, relatively high altitude and fragmented terrain mean Luochuan's crop farming cannot compare with the 800-li Qinchuan plain of Guanzhong, and its animal husbandry cannot compare with the vast grasslands north of the Great Wall. So Luochuan was long regarded as a bitterly poor place. When I went to work in Guanzhong back then, it was largely to escape rural life and get away from the hard days of eating coarse grains at every meal.

Only after studying agricultural history did I truly realize that "no land is unfit for farming." As long as you choose crop varieties suited to local cultivation, agriculture can still develop greatly. The rise and takeoff of Luochuan apples is powerful proof of this.

In modern times, Luochuan county town had the Qu and Wang clans, and most officials, gentry and wealthy families came from these two great houses. Luochuan sits at a key position between Yan'an and Xi'an, so many negotiations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party relied on the Qu and Wang families to mediate and communicate. Among the two families, some held posts in the Nationalist government, but leaned progressive in thought, so they used their status as cover to do many beneficial things for the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region.

One member of the Qu family was named Qu Shen, courtesy name Dongzhi. He graduated in his early years from Beijing College of Political Science and Law and the Northwest Military Officers Academy, and rose to become a major general and deputy division commander of the Nationalist 106th Division, concurrently director of its political department. Although Qu Shen held a military post, he was passionate about public welfare, and whatever benefited the national economy and people's livelihood, he would spare no effort to do.

In 1945, Qu Shen funded his orderly Li Xin'an to study apple cultivation and beekeeping techniques in Lingbao County, where the troops were stationed. In 1948, Qu Shen paid for apple saplings and entrusted Li Xin'an to transport them back to Luochuan, where cultivation trials were carried out in Asi Village, thus opening the first page of "Luochuan apples."

Luochuan had crabapples and sand apples, and apples were truly a rarity at first. Farmyards planted a few peach, pear, apricot and jujube trees purely for the family to eat. Planting apples specifically, using complex pruning and cultivation techniques to raise yields, and achieving commercial value through large-scale planting were things the ancestors had never thought of.

Under Li Xin'an's advocacy, demonstration and leadership, some villages and cooperatives set up apple orchards and earned income. In an era when each workday was worth only a few cents, this made the villagers deeply envious. A neighboring village to my hometown had the famous Qing (Qingniu Village) Yao (Yaoxue Village) orchard, enclosed tightly by high walls stretching for several li, making it seem mysterious and unfathomable.

In middle school, on the school-run farm, during breaks from labor, in order to taste apples, a bunch of us close buddies formed a human ladder, climbed the wall and jumped into the production team's orchard. Unexpectedly, this orchard was easy to enter but hard to leave, and in the end we were caught one by one "like turtles in a jar" and hauled off to the school leaders. The principal compared us to "people who came down from Mount Emei" (words Mao Zedong used to mock Chiang Kai-shek's government after the War of Resistance ended), meaning we grabbed the fruits of the common people's labor without fertilizing or watering.

After reform and opening up, farmers gained independent management rights over their contracted fields, their enthusiasm for production soared, and the Luochuan apple industry developed vigorously. As a typical agricultural county, Luochuan, compared with surrounding counties and districts, long remained a poor county dependent on fiscal subsidies. The tax on agricultural and forestry specialty products, mainly apple operations, once became the county's main fiscal revenue. During this period, the county and township governments spared no effort in advancing the apple industry, but the drain-the-pond-to-catch-the-fish tax burden left farmers overwhelmed.

Around 2004, as a member of the expert group of the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee of the Provincial People's Congress, I went to Luochuan to study the issue of abolishing agricultural tax. County leaders at the time worried that once the fruit tax was abolished, the government would be unable to function. Of course, the pro-farmer policy was applied across the land, and Luochuan could not be an exception. Abolishing the agricultural tax (especially the tax on agricultural and forestry specialty products) removed the last shackle restricting the development of Luochuan's apple industry.

Now when you go to Luochuan, apple trees stretch as far as the eye can see. Enjoying blossoms in spring, greenery in summer and fruit in autumn has become a beautiful sight. According to statistics, Luochuan County has a total cultivated land area of 640,000 mu, with apple planting area reaching 500,000 mu, 3.1 mu per capita, annual output of 850,000 tons, and total income of 4 billion yuan. It is the only green apple base county in the country.

In 2015, the per capita net income of Luochuan farmers was 12,987 yuan, of which 90% came from apples and related industries. This is very rare among counties in China where agriculture is the leading industry.

Young and middle-aged farmers in Luochuan rarely go out to work. During the seasons for thinning apple blossoms, bagging and harvesting, they even hire outside laborers at high wages. Apart from the fact that Luochuan fruit growers still have rural household registration, their food, clothing, housing and transportation are almost no different from city people's.

In the era of shortage economy, apples were enclosed by walls to prevent damage and theft. Now, apple orchards have torn down their fences and knocked down their walls. "The swallows that once nested in the halls of the noble Wang and Xie families now fly into the homes of ordinary people." Even the caretakers are gone. What you have, I have, everyone has; people who once craved and dreamed of apples now eat them as an everyday thing. When rural tourists enter an orchard to look around, the owner warmly invites them to taste the fruits of his labor, and a few words praising Luochuan apples will bring a proud and satisfied smile to the owner's face. If you ask why he is so generous, he will say, this is helping us advertise Luochuan apples!

Luochuan apples also have different wholesale prices depending on size! Let me tell you about a place with cheap, big and sweet apples for wholesale: Changwu County!
Changwu County is close to Gansu. On the Loess Plateau, the large temperature difference between day and night makes the apples very sweet. It is relatively located at the westernmost edge of Shaanxi, and the whole county mainly grows apples. When apple buyers come, the largest 90-size apples are only about 2 yuan, so 70-size apples are cheaper than smaller apples! There are also online stores on Taobao where you can buy some to try. If you go there, the local wholesale prices are pitifully low!